Cup final marks breakthrough year for women’s shinty

Sport of Camanachd, or shinty, is spreading beyond Scottish Highlands, with women's game the biggest growth area

When the teams step out at Bught Park, Inverness on Saturday for the Camanachd Cup Final, it will mark the end of a remarkable season for the Highland sport, which has seen women and girls enjoying a breakthrough" year.

Camanachd, or shinty - which developed as hurling in Ireland - is played with curved sticks, or caman, and a ball, and is thought to have its roots in the training of warriors in Highland clans. But the intensely physical game, which evolved into a community then club-based sport by the late 19th century, was traditionally male-dominated, with women relegated to serving teas or providing dancing entertainment on the sidelines.