Skye Camanachd

Skye Camanachd are a shinty team from the Isle of Skye. They play in the Mowi National Division and have a reserve team in Mowi North 1, as well as a Ladies team in the Mowi WCA National and a Ladies reserve team in the Mowi WCA Development League. The club is based at Pairc nan Laoch, Portree.

Skye won the Camanachd Cup for the first time in 1990 against Newtonmore in Fort William. Inspirational in this victory was player Willie Cowie and his brother, manager Ross Cowie. The BBC programme “Home”, directed by Douglas Mackinnon, filmed behind the scenes on the day as well as the triumphant homecoming to Portree where they were met by a crowd of 5000 people, almost half the island’s population. The expensive trophy was lost and then found in the street at 6 a.m. the next day: the local legend was that everybody thought that someone else was looking after it. In addition to winning the Cup, the Albert Smith Medal, an award presented to the Man of the Match in the final of the Camanachd Cup every year since 1972, was presented to Willie Macrae from Skye Camanachd in 1990. Skye remains the only team from an island to have won the Cup. The club toured Nova Scotia in 1991 in the afterglow of the success alongside Kingussie.