| Season 2003-04 - World Championships - 17-23/4/04 |
 Scottish Men's Seniors Champions 2003-04 (L to R) Jim Stirling, Alan Guthrie, Anne Malcolm (Ladies Branch Junior President-elect, David Robertson, George Manson |
Jim Stirling (Bridge of Weir Curling Club member) and George Manson (former club member), were both members of a team which won the Scottish Men's Senior Championship held in March 2004 at Greenacres. George played 2nd and Jim played 3rd in a team skipped by David Robertson. To quote Christine Stewart's report in the April edition of the Scottish Curler, "(in the semi-final) David Hird's team made a great come back when six shots down after six, they scored three in the seventh. They couldn't quite make up the deficit in the last end and Robertson came out the winner 8 - 6. Once again the final was tight in the early ends and it was a steal that made the difference. Robertson stole a single in the fifth for a three shot lead. McGlynn fought back with a single in the sixth, but a single to Robertson in the seventh sealed the game. McGlynn scored one in the final end for a scoreline of 6 - 4 in Robertson's favour. The winning teams will represent Scotland in the World Seniors Championships in Sweden in April". |
 Jim Stirling sweeps Alan Guthrie's stone during the 2004 World Senior Men's Curling Championships |
The victorious Seniors team then took part in the World Senior Men's Curling Championships, held in Gävle, Sweden from 17th to 23rd April. The championship was divided into two sections. Section A had 8 teams, and section B, which included Scotland, had 7 teams. The other teams in Scotland's section were Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the USA, and Wales. The format for the competition was set up as two leagues, with the top two in each section competing in the semi-finals and finals.
The Scottish men opened with a convincing 8 - 2 victory against Wales on Saturday 17th April, followed by a tight 7 - 6 victory over Finland on the Sunday 18th April. A 3 - 8 loss to Sweden on the Monday afternoon was followed by a well fought 11 - 7 victory over the Netherlands on Monday evening. A very close battle on Tuesday morning resulted in a narrow 3 - 4 loss to Switzerland, and in their final league round on Tuesday evening the Scots defeated the USA 5 - 3, thus becoming the only team to defeat the USA in their section. |
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The United States and Switzerland both finished on five wins, with Sweden and Scotland both on four wins - a very creditable performance by the Scottish team. Where teams finished with the same number of victories, the final standings were decided on the result of the league match(es) between the affected teams. So the Scottish men finished fourth in their section, having lost to Sweden in the league. In the semi-finals, Canada defeated Switzerland 9 - 6, while the USA defeated Norway 7 - 3. Canada went on to defeat the USA 8 - 3 in the final. The Scots team were pitted against Denmark who finished in fourth place in the A section in the play-off for overall seventh / eighth place, unfortunately going down 3 - 8. Missing out on the semi-finals by only 1 defeat, and finishing eighth overall, was a fine performance for a team appearing in their first ever World Championships. |
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Thanks to Bob Cowan, editor of the Scottish Curler magazine, for permission to use Christine Stewart's text in the article on the Scottish Senior Men's Championships. Thanks also to Bob for permission to use Hugh Stewart's photographs in the articles on the Scottish Senior Men's Championships and the World Senior Men's Championships.] © Bridge of Weir Curling Club - 2004 |