Achi news desk-
As well as struggling to attract new committee members, some games have been hit with a financial blow as hard-pressed local authorities withdraw financial support, leaving them struggling to make ends meet.
There are also concerns that a Scottish Government consultation looking at alcohol advertising in sporting venues at the moment could lead to new rules affecting sponsorship and valuable support from whiskey distilleries and breweries.
In recent weeks two popular games events, the Loch Lomond Highland Games in Balloch and Thornton in Fife, have been cancelled.
The Balloch games, planned for mid-July, fell through after they lost financial support – around £14,000 – from West Dunbartonshire Council.
When the Royal Scottish Highland Games Association collapsed it scrambled to find other venues for the World Heavyweight Championship and Scottish 80 meter events.
While the Thornton Highland Gathering, which ran for nearly 190 years and once attracted huge crowds, has become the latest Fife games to suffer apathy among its local community.
His committee numbers had been on the slide before the pandemic. Events were canceled due to lockdown, triggering a further decline.
With older members of the committee disappearing, complaints surfaced about the time-consuming preparations, the challenges of meeting modern health and safety requirements and the lack of fresh blood coming through to help.
A new committee had tried to keep the games alive but finally admitted that they could not guarantee that they would be able to complete all the work necessary to run the event.
According to the RSHGA, they had “no choice but to call it a day” and are now completely broke.
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The association encouraged a rallying cry for more people to support events or face the possibility that they could miss them completely.
“All the country’s games are run by volunteer members and, to ensure they survive through this and into the next century, it is essential that more people come forward to lend a hand,” he said. .
The loss of Balloch and Thornton’s matches followed the demise of two others. Cupar collapsed in Fife, and Roseneath who was being held near Helensburgh after struggling to find new blood to take.
Meanwhile, other games organizers have been sending out appeals for help: The Helensburgh and Lomond Highland Games have encouraged volunteers to come forward to set up the June 1 event and afterwards to clean up and remove fences.
The call for a new generation of volunteers to step up with the Scottish Highland games season is just weeks away: it kicks off with the Gourock Highland Games on Sunday, May 12.
That gathering, held in the town’s Battery Park, thrives because unlike many Scottish Highland games which are community-run and rely on unpaid volunteers and sponsor support , it is funded and organized by the area’s local authority, Inverclyde Council.
The coming weeks will also see games taking place at venues from Castle Gordon near Fochabers – organized through the castle estate – to Garmunnock due at the end of the month and back again after a delay due to the pandemic.
Gatherings are scheduled for almost every weekend throughout the summer, until the final 2024 games in mid-September at Pitlochry and Bowhill at Cardenden in Fife.
And although there are concerns, Highland games officials say they remain upbeat and are keen to emphasize that dozens of events will continue to take place.
“We still have 59 members, there are games all over the country and we all try to help each other where we can to make sure these are great events,” said Craig Dunbar, Secretary the RSHGA.
However, he admitted: “Fewer people are ready or willing or able to spend the time it takes to put these things on.
“Highland games are like many other clubs and organisations; the people organizing them are getting older and trying to get younger people to come in is difficult.
“We don’t know if people don’t have the time, whether it’s family pressure, people who work every hour the Lord sends to pay the bills or whether it’s just that their interests have changed.
“It’s a generational shift and a different attitude these days to doing a lot of work voluntarily? Or that people can’t be bothered to put up the red tape that goes with it all?
“Then there is funding and sponsorship which is proving increasingly difficult to obtain and in some cases has not come back this side of Covid.
“Having a couple of younger people is not enough.
“But it’s not that we’re alone in being great,” he adds, “many other sporting events and groups are going the same way.”
Indeed, earlier this week – and with the 2024 Summer Olympics on the horizon – Scottish Athletics appealed for volunteers for three upcoming regional meetings.
He said the events, the 4J Studios Area Championships for teenagers, and the National Open for Seniors, Under 20s and Under 18s in Grangemouth, Kilmarnock and Inverness over the weekend of May 10-12 attracted more than 2,300 entries. by 1,300 athletes.
“With no less than 70 affiliated clubs represented across the three venues, it is expected to be a busy weekend of athletics for all,” the organization added.
“We already have support from 200 officers and volunteers to assist with the presentation of these events, and we are very grateful to them.
“However, with three packed schedules to meet, our dedicated teams of regular volunteers are under pressure, and we need further support from the sport to make these events happen.”
He encouraged athletics clubs to seek volunteers to help technical officials across various roles, including athlete assembly and presentations as well as on-field roles.
Ironically enough, the apparent indifference of Scots towards supporting some of the Highland games is the background to their immense popularity abroad.
In the USA, Highland gatherings are held from Alaska to Hawaii. The Grandfather Mountain Highland Games in North Carolina span four days and attract more than 40,000 spectators with pipe bands and sports alongside whiskey tastings, an appearance by Hebridean Baker Coinneach MacLeod, torchlight parades, shepherding sheep, fiddle and harp competitions and mini Gaelic mod.
Alaska has two Highland games – one of which includes a ‘salmon toss’ event – there are ten in California and more than a dozen in Florida.
Last month, the Las Vegas Celtic Society hosted its 20th Highland Games with two days of events, exclusive VIP tickets, pipes and drums and its very own Nevada tartan.
Highland matches are also held across Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Switzerland, France, Germany, Czech Republic and Belgium.
Closer to home, the number of Highland gatherings is a fraction of the 1970s and 1980s, when celebrities of the day such as Diana Dors, Bobby Charlton and Linda Lusardi made personal appearances.
The sluggish support from volunteers also seems different from the level of interest among competitors.
Mr Dunbar says events are attracting increasing numbers of entries, particularly among younger competitors and women looking to test their strength in the javelin and shot put.
“The number of competitors we have coming from America for the heavyweight events is in double figures, we have runners coming from Australia and many dancers from America, Canada and Australia,” he adds.
“Unfortunately, if you ask most people what they know about Highland games, they’ll say ‘Braemar’ because it’s the only one they’ve ever played. see on television.
“But it is only one that is run by the 59 Scottish members of our association, and there are others that are run by organizations that are not our members.
“Over the summer there are 90 around the country.
“I’m not complacent but I’m not panicking either,” he adds. Games have adapted and people do it because they love it.
“But inevitably, unless people volunteer, there are some games that won’t happen again.”
