14 July 2012
Millions of years ago, a meteor hurtled into the earth. The dinosaurs were wiped out and, across the world, summer stopped happening for a few years.
Much like modern day Scotland.
Fortunately, an exception was made on July 14th, when the sun shone upon the beach volleyball players of Broughty Ferry.
Competition in the men’s tournament was fierce. The Scottish partnership of young blade Jamie McHardy and Barry McGuigan – one of the elder statesmen of Scottish beach volleyball – were top seeds, with strong Polish, Latvian and other Scottish pairings hoping to cause the upset.
In the end though, McHardy and McGuigan were simply too strong. Despite some fantastic rallies, great kill-blocks and power hits, they steamrollered their way past Moir and McKeown in the semi-final en-route to a 2-0 victory over Konrad Krawczyk and Rinars Teters in the final.
Entries for the women’s competition was poor but the standard was high. Claire Penny and Carina Hemmers were triumphant in a nail biting three set final against Anna Fischer and Aileen Hall.
Thanks to Claire Penny, Anna Fischer, Carina Hemmers and Lorna Christie for staying on and refereeing, scoring, generally being awesome after their competition was finished. Also to everyone who turned up early and stayed late to help out – Paul Gartshore, Konrad and Rinars, Giannos and Vincenzo, Iain Cook, Callum Moir, Leon and Lukasz, and others that I’ve probably forgotten to mention here.
And huge thanks to Colin Paterson, for assisting with the draw when he was in Bournemouth, to his lovely wife Shelly for supplying the equipment, and to Freddie Fairbairn for too much help to be adequately mentioned here.
Jack McKeown