Highland Games

It is difficult to say exactly when the first Highland Games were held purely for sport and pleasure but it is recorded that King Malcolm III ordered a foot race to be run up Craig Coinich near Braemar in the 11th century.  The purpose of this race was to select a runner to be the king's messenger.  It may well have been that other sports were enjoyed on that day.

At various times throughout the highlands the men of various clans met and competed among themselves as a kind of training for war -  they raced, wrestled, lifted and threw weights as well as practising with sword and shield.  It was in 1574 that throwing the bar was first mentioned.  This no doubt was the precursor to tossing the caber.  Then again we have a record of the fact that the men of Clan Grant were called together to compete and display their various skills in the year 1703.

The proscription of tartan and removal of weapons after the 1745 Rebellion meant that any warlike displays were illegal.  Then Sir Walter Scott took a hand in romanticising tartan  and the like by getting King George IV tarted up during his visit to Edinburgh in 1822, the year in which the Inverness Highland Games was inaugurated.  Queen Victoria was the next Royal to popularise Highland Games by giving her patronage to the Braemar Games in 1848.  Since then a Royal presence at Braemar has become a tradition over the years.

In 1889 Baron Pierre de Coubertin the founder of the modern Olympics was faced with the problem of deciding which sports should be included in his first games and  drawing up the rules for them.  There was a Highland Games Competition in Paris that year (don't ask why) and he decided to attend to learn about the sports involved and the rules that were applied.  He saw most of what we nowadays call field sports including foot and cycle races, wrestling, tug-of-war and the heavy events as well as dancing and piping competitions.  So there ye are – nae Highland Games, nae modern Olympics.

What is possibly the largest Highland Games in the world is held by the Caledonian Club of San Francisco established in 1856 with about 80,000 spectators.  Probably the most publicised is Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina with about 50,000 spectators but that's America for you.  

Here in Scotland in 2011 there will be The West Lothian Highland Games held in Bathgate.  This is the 40th such event held in the town and it has grown from what was originally a pipe band competition.  In Scotland there will be about another 110 Games held between Stornoway in the west and Aberdeen in the east and between Durness in the north and Dumfries in the south.  There will be racing, wrestling, tug-of-war, tossing the caber, throwing the hammer, throwing weights for height and for distance, putting the shot and dancing and solo piping competitions as well as pipe band and drummer major competitions.  Probably the most stirring part of any event is the March Past of all competing bands and the playing of Highland laddie as a tribute to the Chieftain.