Stirling Invitational

Team Edwards were back in action again this weekend competing in the Stirling Invitational. This weekend saw super sub Ringo returning to our line up as John Penny had other commitments that he could not get out of.

Ringo in action.

But what other commitments could John possibly have that would mean he would have to miss one of the most important curling weekends of the season and leave his team in the lurch? And more worryingly, allowing Scott to play third?

Work?

A holiday?

A wedding?

A funeral?

A family emergency?

They would probably all be pretty valid and understandable excuses. But no, it was none of these.

John Penny missed the Stirling Invitational because he is whipped.

The trousers that John never gets to wear. 

JP’s lucky significant other had booked flights up to Aberdeen where they could spend a romantic weekend together. Rumour has it that John had a fun filled weekend prepared for himself and Caitlin. Our sources say that John had booked a candle lit table for two at McDonalds, where he would even consider letting Caitlin supersize the meal, as it is certain that nothing else over the course of the weekend would be *"Supersize". This was to be followed by a drive in his car back to Old Meldrum where he had prepared nothing but the finest 6 pack of Strongbow to watch the football with. I am sure that she will have been impressed.

Romance.

As for the curling, it went alright.

Win 5-4 v Fraser Hare. Pretty tight, made the hit and stick for the win.

Win 10-0 v A Mitchell. Dishing out free points.

Win 7-2 v Graeme Shedden. Made a good double for 4 in the middle of the game.

Win 7-1 v Murray Young. Stole a 4 in the 6^th to seal the deal.

Draw 2-2 v Logan Gray. They gave up half way through the game.

We were through to the quarter final against Ewan McDonald where we once again improved our playoff record with a tight 3-2 victory.

We then had Warwick Smith in the semi-final, they beat us 5-1 by taking a 3 when Warwick made a triple followed by a split.   

We also had to play the role of Richard Hart on a couple of occasions over the course of the weekend.

After the games on Friday and Saturday we had a couple of beers while watching boxing and playing cards. Like real men. As I am sure you are all aware, Team Edwards are highly desirable company and Team Barr begged us to allow them to come for a few drinks with us to celebrate their qualification into the Scottish Ladies Finals. We initially said no, but we finally caved and accepted. One thing to note about their qualifying weekend is that Rhiann Macleod travelled to the curling competition in Dumfries without her curling shoes. Absolute spacker.

Standard Rhiann

After a couple of drinks Kerry Barr was getting a bit mouthy. She challenged Scott to a high stakes game of pool in the hotel across the road. It was a good game which was very tense at times. After an opportunity to clear up, Kerry choked and gave Scott the tap in for the win. Kerry whimpered away with her tail between her legs. FIVE POUNDS TO MACLEOD!!!!! Victory pic below. Never in doubt.

The prize giving. 

That was the Stirling Invitational.

Because we stole some photos, I will give the source a shout out.
Andy R Macpherson did a great job, here is a link to his album.

http://tinyurl.com/cgqq9me

Next up for us is the Kinross Open which is played over the weekend of 14-16 December.

http://kinrossopen.blogspot.co.uk/

We also had a new feature that was planned for this weekend, but we forgot to actually do it. We will get to it at Kinross, and post the results.

That is all,
Goodbye.
X

*yes, it was a reference to John having a tiny penis

Lockerbie Superspiel

Last weekend we took part in the Lockerbie Superspiel. Following a hiatus from the last tournament, Team Edwards had their absolute tank of a second back in their roster ready to dominate all on-comers.

The Tank

The weekend began on Thursday evening with John and Dave driving the long road to Perth to pick up Scott in McDonalds at Broxden.  Following a nutritious pit-stop, we were fuelled up for the rest of the journey down to the Edwards family home where we met Colin. We were exceptionally well fed/looked after throughout the weekend by Meg. Much appreciated both by us and our bank accounts!

As we arrived, we were allocated to our rooms for the weekend. John and Colin ended up in Dave’s child hood room which was well indicated by the sign on the door. The stag looking over his herd of hinds in the pasture really was inspiring. I can see why it was Dave’s choice.

Due to some Libyans going a bit raging 24 years ago, there were not that many embarrassing childhood pictures of Dave going around. The best I got was of a young Dave graduating. I think he resembles a chimp.

Chimp boy

As there was a pub quiz on the Saturday night that we desperately wanted to win, we had a training session on Friday evening. John Penny showed the depth of his historical and political knowledge with this gem.

Scott: "Right John, I would normally ask these questions to Rhiann to make her look like a spacker, but today it is happening to you. Who was Che Guevera?"
John: "No idea"
Scott: "Karl Marx?"
John: "…..Nope"
Scott: "Fidel Castro?"
John: "Are these meant to be people?"
Scott: "Kim Jong Un"
John: "I do not know"
Scott: "Lenin?"
John: "Oh aye, he played for Celtic"

Neil Lennon

Vladimir Lenin

We were just about to settle down for the evening on Friday night when we heard some nervous laughter coming from Scott.  As it turns out the fashionista had picked up his gym bag rather than his weekend bag and didn't have a change of clothes.  True to form Scott hit the Lockerbie "High Street" on Friday morning and opted for some sleek looking white t-shirts accompanied with a pants and socks multipack from that famous brand Tesco. A full weekend of clothing for under £20 bargin!

"The emperor's new clothes"

A special mention has to go to avid Poirot fan and daytime TV viewer Kenny Edwards who set everyone right at the quiz about where the show was based.  The world according to Kenny had Poirot placed in "Kentshire" (anyone ever heard of Kentshire?!?) because the people spoke posh English.  Poirot was a Belgian detective based in London for those of you who didn't know, but lets just say the logic used by Kenny to determine that he wasn't based elsewhere in Europe was a little wayward.  I'll go no further than to say I'm not sure a sure a show in a foriegn language would work on ITV!?!

Poirot Superfan

 As for the curling, we will stay true to form and not go into any depth.

Win 14-3 v David Jones. They dropped a couple 4’s, which was very nice of them.

Win 5-4 v Gus Van Imhoff. We had to pick a stone clean for the win against the Dutch team with suspiciously Canadian accents. Stay sharp, stay focused, this is the moment.

Win 7-5 Gavin Flemming. Took a 3 of us in the first end so had to claw it back.

Draw 4-4 David Hardie. We gave up a steal up 2 to make it difficult, we took a 2 in the last end for a tie to win the group.

This led to our quarter final. We were standing at an impressive record of 0-6 for playoff games prior to the tournament, so we went into the game against Christine Cannon’s senior ladies outfit as heavy under dogs. We managed to somehow get through this game for our first ever win in the business end of a tournament. Congratulations to us.

This led to us playing the on fire Graeme Black. Or, he was getting fired….. or needing fired. I can’t remember. It was a good game, with some decent curling. We were lying game for the entire 8th end, but Graeme played a good last shot to leave us an angle run back for the win, which we missed.

So it was off the 3/4 playoff against Gavin Flemming. There was all the intensity, drive and emotion you would expect for a 3/4 with an impending 4 hour drive to follow. Colin ditched us in the second end to go away to work. This left us with 3 players and Scott extremely pissed off as he was now throwing lead. We managed to win the game and the £12.50 prize money that went with it.

Fraser Hare won the tight 7 end final against Graeme Black. Congratulations.

Edinburgh International Roundup

It's taken a while to get round to doing this update, but I thought we'd better provide a summary of the Edinburgh International before we head off to Scottish Curling Tour event at Lockerbie this weekend.

Things started well with a win against Lovold, but they soon took a turn for the worse as we lost three straight to Kauste, Smith and the Russians.  You'll notice I didn't mention the surname for the Russians and there's two reasons for this.  Firstly I would likely make a right mess of trying to spell it and secondly because I think they all had a shot of skipping over the weekend.  If you were to ask us why we lost those games it probably came down to a mixture of average play and some questionable tactics given the ice conditions.  Going into our last round robin match against John Hamilton we had two chances of qualifying for the quarter finals.  One was none and I'm sure you can work out what the other was.  We managed to get a win from this one and finished the weekend off with a W.  We'll move on with a few things to work on from that weekend.

A big thanks goes out to Neil MacArthur for stepping in to replace "The Destroyer" over the course of the tournament.

So off to Lockerbie it is this weekend as we attempt to wipe out the 7 point advantage that Team Barr have over us in the tour rankings.  We're matched up against David Jones in our first game for the second time this season, and with Team Curl One Out also in our section the exciting prospect of a big clash over the weekend looms.

Atholl Factor & Super Sub

If you read our last update you'll know that Scott won't be with us in two weeks time for the Edinburgh International.  Some of our regular followers will remember that Scott was absent last year for the Stirling Invitational as he had to direct traffic at House of Bruar while dressed as a squirrel.  While he mentioned on the previous post that he would be absent this time due to work commitments it transpires that he's actually performing in the local Atholl-Factor auditions in Blair Atholl.  Scott was caught on video last weekend warming up for the big event although it is apparent his voice coach does have their work cut out with only a couple of weeks to go.  His personal manager and sister Rhiann Macleod does appear a little shocked in the video, and we can only assume this is because his song choice was intended to be kept secret.  Phone lines open on Saturday night and I'd personally save your cash, but here's a sneak preview. Thanks goes out to our man on the inside Andy who provided the footage.



If we're being completely honest wasn't that difficult to find a replacement for Scott and we're pleased to announce that Neil Macathur will be joining the team for the event in Edinburgh and also at Stirling later in the month.  I did try to find a photo of Neil in action, but he must be good at hiding from the camera so you'll have to make do with the video of Scott this week.

The Forfar Open, the Horse Race, Independence and Gok Wan.

We played in our first competition of the season in Forfar at the weekend. It was a good one which involved some extracurricular activities to keep us entertained.

The new team shirts got their first outing. In hindsight, when ordering jackets from a company that specialises in clothing rugby teams, it is maybe not a great idea to err on the larger side.

Here is a picture of Scott trying on his new jacket.

As for the curling, I don’t really like going into much detail, so I wont.

Win 9-4 v David Jones. Took our 2’s quite well. Ran it out reasonably easily.
Win 11-3 v Andrew Maitland. They were pretty young.
Win 5-3 v Ally Fraser. Took a 3 in the last to win.
Win 7-1 v Ian Young. This game hurt a little, too early and too hungover.
Win 6-5 v Graeme Shedden. Very close, stole a 3 in the 7th to come back.

So we topped our group and went on to play Robin Brydone in the quarter final. We did the classic Team Edwards routine, go through the group stages undefeated to then lose the first knockout game. We gave up a steal of 2 early on, then an unlucky 3 to be 5-1 down at the halfway point. We managed to claw it back a bit and made him draw the 8ft against 3 for a 7-5 win. Pretty frustrating, but they played quite well.

On the Friday evening following our 3 game day, we had a couple beers, which then turned into being a lot of beers. While this was going on, the entertainment in the ice rink involved a horse race. This involved the two competitors to sit on a chair with a piece of string attached to a wooden horse. The goal is to roll the string around the wee stick to get the horse to your chair first. With one nominated player from each team to compete, Scott was the Team Edwards representative. The picture below shows the concept of the game.

The concept

He battled through 3 rounds of intense competition with the notable demolition of Kerry Barr on the way. It was an extremely proud moment for him. Unfortunately, in the best of 3 grand-final, Scott lost out 2-1, and the EQ pad went to Angus.

Nervous Kerry.... as she should have been!

Following the horse race, Team Edwards made a stop in a local bar. We came across a local gentleman who could be described as having a few too many beverages. After a couple of minutes of us arriving, he wished to engage us in an intense political debate. We glanced on several subjects throughout the course of the evening from Scottish Independence all the way through to conspiracy theories regarding Princess Diana. The very articulate gentleman believed that that the SAS in-fact took her out because she was pregnant with Dodi Fayed’s child. The reason behind this was the government did not want this child to be King. We will let you figure out why this theory one does not really work.

But just in case Rhiann is reading, it doesn’t work because neither Diana or Dodi were members of the Royal family at that time. Therefore, the child would not be inline to the throne. And for Rhiann again, Dodi Fayed was Mohamed Al-Fayed son. Mohamed Al-Fayed was the guy who used to own Harrods. And Harrods is a shop.

As for the cards over the weekend. Something very unique happened. Nobody could really believe it. JOHN PENNY WON A GAME! Congratulations on the victory.

As Dave is now getting into his old age, he requires spectacles for some very basic tasks such as playing cards, curling and looking like a camp Chinese television presenter.

Gok Wan

Dave Edwards

That was The Forfar Open. Next up is the Edinburgh International during the second weekend in November. Scott is going AWOL for that weekend, as he has to work. As far as I am aware, we do not have a replacement for the weekend at this point. If you would like the opportunity of a lifetime to play second for Team Edwards, you can apply in writing to David Edwards. Or text/facebook him. 

That is all from Team Edwards

Goodbye.

The Winter Collection

I'm sure there will be a tear in the eye of many a curling fan when they hear the news that the "Green Machine" is no more.  The 2011/2012 collection has been replaced with a new look for this season , which includes the latest curling fashion accessory, player numbers.  The addition of numbers to the kit this season came as special request from Macleod as he thinks they're "cool".

So it's black and yellow this season guys and the bumble bee look is sure to provide a real buzz!

A sneak preview of Macleod's rear end

The first outing for the kit will be at the Forfar Open next Friday 11th October at 10am against team David Jones where we're be hoping to get our season off to a winning start.

Finally we'd like to apologise to everyone in advance as we fully expect team super fan Alan Clark to have his beach towel across several seats prior to the game and viewing space may well be at a premium.

Summer 2012 - We're back!

It's been a while since we last posted so I'll apologise now for the length of this update!

Well the good news is that unlike The Rangers Football Club PLC our team will emerge from the off-season with it's name, reputation (if we had any), history and personnel intact. The administration at Rangers must have watched a lot of Bullseye during the eighties and taken Jim Bowen's catchphrase "Stay out of the black and into the red" the wrong way. If any of you kids don't remember Bullesye that's what we used to watch on a Saturday night before rubbish like the X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing came on the scene.

Let's cover off the only serious piece of news that's worthwhile touching on in this post and that's relates to funding. Although the team does remain intact for the season ahead we will not be part of the RCCC World Class Performance programme. We decided at the end of last season that the programme criteria doesn't fall in line with our needs for various reasons and have therefore decided to move forward without any official support. We are however pleased to announce that coach Greig Henderson is still on the roster and will be helping the team out with his expert game analysis and wine selection skills.

Well that's all the dull stuff covered off so what have we been up to over the summer?

At the start of August Dave had a one off loan move to team Curl One Out approved for the Stirling Summer Skins. In what can only be described as an absolute disgrace the team sunk enough alcohol to take down a cruise liner and were incapable of curling on the Friday night. I'm sure some would question whether they were capable of curling at any point during the weekend. One point to highlight was the dance off challenge issued by Kerry Barr on Saturday night. This really was a non event after Disco Dave pulled off the winning Crippled Grandad move on the dance floor to which Barr had no reply. Maybe you'll have better luck at skating Barr face!

A picture of Dave was taken during one of the games with Team Curl One Out

After only a few months of romance Johns other half decided that she'd had enough of him and flew off to Australia for the summer. He's spent last few months pining for her swift return. John joined to family business as a joiner last year and lets just say he's a little accident prone. It therefore has to be positive that we've had no accident reports this summer after he walked into a plank of wood with his head and stood on a nail last year.

John: When will she be back?

I'm sure all the ladies out there will really be wanting to know what the team heart throb Scotty has been up to this summer. Unfortunately the Peugeot passion wagon is no more and has had her last trip. Although we're yet to see the replacement the rumour is that you'll not be disappointed. The question on everyones lips is whether Scott will be the next in line to replace Daniel Craig as James Bond? It was only last week he managed to break into his own house with all the skills of 007 only to find out the front door was open.

It is rumoured that Scott has purchased a new Austin Powers styled machine

Colin set up a new gardening business during the summer and is now trading as Hedge and Lawn Garden Services. In a shameless plug for business if anyone in and around the Edinburgh area needs the lawn mowed, hedge cut or the odd bush trimmed he is your man. Could Colin be the new Alan Titchmarsh?

Beachgrove Gardens Jim McColl is hiding from BBC bosses in the fear that Colin may in line to replace him

The guys (minus Scott who was working on his market stall) met up for a BBQ and beers a few weeks back in Aberdeen and below is some footage from our trip to Go Ape at Crathes.

Stay loose silly goose!