Badminton team victorious

Shetland regained the Inkster Cup in the annual senior inter-county badminton A match with a 9-3 victory over Orkney on Saturday.

The team members had been waiting 12 months for the opportunity to win back the cup, after losing to the old enemy last year, Orkney’s first win after 27 consecutive years of Shetland success.

A number of top players were missing through illness and injury but this allowed some of the younger squad members to earn a place in the team.

Kylie Wood, on her senior debut, became the latest member of the family to play for the Shetland A team and she was one of the stars of the show.

Orkney also had a fair sprinkling of younger players and Andrew Reid was called on just a few days before the match due to an injury.

After the level doubles Shetland had established a 4-2 lead, following victories by Norman Sineath and Brett Haining, Kylie and Anne Wood, Zoe Anderson and Audrey Leask and Jason Jamieson and Colin Grant.

Laura Guthrie and Haining started the mixed doubles with a battling three-set victory and from there on Shetland were in command.

Kylie Wood and Sineath made it 6-2 and although Stephanie Keith and Ramsay Hogg and lost out the overall match was secured when Leask and Jamieson had a comfortable win.

Anne Wood and Grant and Anderson and Gordon Keith both overwhelmed their opponents to make the final score 9-3.

Shetland Badminton Association president Maurice Haining said: “I would like to congratulate all the Shetland players who, without exception, played very well. There were some very exciting matches but we deserved to win back the Inkster Cup.”

• For full report see Friday’s Shetland Times.