Random Scottish Sweeping Notes

It would 1967 or ’68 that I practised sweeping. Keeping schoolboy hours, I could be at the rink before the men’s leagues started and it was almost empty, so you could get a sheet to yourself. Although a 100% pay-as-you-play environment, schoolboys practising for a lifetime’s addiction to the sport were not discouraged, or charged. I would set the 16 stones up in two rows 15” apart, and see how fast and hard I could sweep, without hitting a stone. False modesty aside, I swept very well.

I would hang around in the evening, and spare for random teams who were a man short. I was good enough to play with competent older curlers, which is the only coaching any of us got. I vividly remember Bob Gardner with whom I beat Hammy Macmillan’s grandfather in the final of the Dewar Cup in 1971, insisting in the late sixties, that you must only sweep at right angles to the direction of the stone, because otherwise you would change the direction of the stone, which would be cheating. Not sure if I have changed my mind about this.

When I played the first Uniroyal u21 in East York in 1971, there were only three non-Canadian teams, and the USA and German/Canadian Airforce teams used corn. I well remember one “Rink Rat” sweeper whose other hobby was wrestling, snapping the broom as he swept, the head hit the wall two sheets away. We were using hair brooms, of course, still a few years away from sweeping pads. The first sweeping pad I saw was a one-off custom made by Alex Glassard (sp) a circular pad on a universal joint, which Leslie Ingram-Brown tried out about 1969.

In order to get the cheapest transatlantic flights, we had to stay in Canada for three weeks. Not a hardship! We played a LOT of curling; my count was 20 games in 21 days. The competition schedule was three games for each of three days, no nonsense about having a knock out stage after the completion of the league, which only exist so that the crucial games can have a television schedule. It was very interesting comparing the sweeping. It struck me you had to be very good indeed to be effective with corn or one of the new synthetic options. I came away with the impression that while expert corn was ok for hits, the push broom was clearly superior for draws, especially in the head.

Corn mush was a whole new hazard that we had no experience of. It was manageable after a lot of practice. While corn mush was omnipresent, the rare occasion of interaction with a single hair shed from a broom was typically terminal for the shot that picked. Moving from hair to pad was a major improvement in our game here.

Fast forward decades, and I am part of the team administering the European championships in Aberdeen in 2009. When not involved in my duties, my badge allowed me access anywhere. The revelation was when sitting at the side, rather than behind the sheet, I could judge how much sweeping has improved. The distance that, say, Edin’s team could drag a stone, was way beyond what any of the men’s teams I had played with could have managed 20-30 years previously. I think the impact of this is considerable, especially as it affects the women’s game relative to the men’s.

If we allow that when I was a contender in the men’s game, 5% of the game was good sweeping, that figure is much bigger now. You can put your own number on it, but even Joanne Courtney is no Bobby Lammie. No matter how true Rachel Homan throws, she doesn’t have the sweeping that needs a “y” chromosome and lots of gym time. This is disappointing, I watched the women’s game start to catch up on the men’s, why should throwing have a sex-based skill differential? – but dramatically increasing the influence of sweeping has reversed that.

Why should there be a separate division for Men? I understand a Junior division, a Seniors division, but why should men need a separate division? The only argument I can think of is in order to prevent women improving by competing against the best. Modern sweeping technology and rules has secured the differential. George Lindsay Senior won the old Scottish Championships in the early sixties three times in a row with the awesome Betty Law playing third. He refused to take part in the playoffs to go to the world championships, because it was male only.  Rant over. Now, what else can I complain about?