Cupar Province Bonspiel 2025-26 Season
The 2025-26 season Bonspiel for Cupar Curling Province was held on Thursday 4th December 2025 at Dewars Ice Rink, Perth.
Fielded that evening were 9 Province clubs and a rink comprising Province committee members to ensure we had an even number of rinks competing over the 5 sheets allocated to us. Taking to the ice were Abdie, Ceres, Cupar, Falkland, Forret, Leuchars, Newport, Pitlessie and Stratheden. Newport were defending their win from last year and, to make the point clear, had polished the Bonspiel trophy to a bright gleam which, they claimed, had been absent when they won it!
In this spirit of friendly rivalry the curlers took to the ice, shaking hands with their opponents in the time honoured tradition of the game. Battle commenced with Pitlessie scoring an early 3 in the first end of their game against The Committee. Falkland managed a creditable 2 against Abdie in these early minutes with 1's being recorded on the other 3 rinks.
In the first hour play continued at a good pace with nobody really pulling away from the competitiuon to any great extent. It should be noted that the winners of the Bonspiel are the rink scoring the most points and, as was pointed out by at least one veteran of the Province, "tactics should be along the lines of the pot lid competitions. Loads of stones in the house and keep away from the take-out game!".
The message was heard and clearly acted upon as when we reach the 6th end we see that Ceres, playing Cupar, Abdie playing Falkland and Forret playing Leuchars are all on 8 points each and starting to watch one anothers progress with hope and trepidation in equal measure. The Committee rink were looking nervously on, having accumulated 7 points and well in contention for the win, and unsure about what the rule book had to say about them taking the victory.
The 7th end saw the worried looks on the Committe faces ease somewhat as they lost that end and then ran out of time to play an 8th. Meanwhile, Ceres took a 2 and Abdie took a 4 on the 7th end and went into the 8th end with Ceres now chasing anything bigger than a 2. Cupar duly obliged in resolving the issue by taking a 2 from Ceres and Abdie finished on a creditable 2, achieving a total of 14 to the Ceres 10.
Afterwards, in the bar, the Secretary, Craig Lindsay thanked everybody for turning out and playing in the true spirit of the game. He mentioned something about gleaming trophies and previous storage arrangements being in a "coo byre" or "tattie trailer". The author was unsure of the implication of these comments but much laughter did ensue. Craig then presented the Bonspiel trophy to the Abdie winning rink of: K. Rose (Skip), G. Thomson (3rd), W. Thomson (2nd) and S. Cranston (lead) (pictured).
