We missed the Christmas Ba but today is new years day and so it is the new year Ba's today.
The boys Ba starts at 10AM and the mens at 1PM.
We got down to Kirkwall at about 12:15. I suggested that we park the car on the edge of town and walk in but Pam that I was being silly and insisted that we park right in the centre of town. The fact that the car park was totally empty and all the buildings around were barricaded up did not ring any alarm bells with Pam.
After some rather warm discussion we agreed to leave the car where it was in the car park and that Pam would have a quick look at the Ba and then take the car out of the centre of town.
We had just got out of the car when the boys Ba came hurtling into the car park as the ba itself briefly broke out of the pack. (I think it is fairly rare to actually see the ba once it has been thrown in and pounced on by the pack)
Fortunately the ba and the pack went over the wall and off the other way without climbing all over our car but I think that Pam may let me leave the car out of the town centre next year as everyone else seems to do.
We watched the boys Ba until about 12:45 then went up to the cathedral to watch the start of the mens Ba.
I lost Pam at this point. I think that she returned to the car. Probably a good thing after seeing the Uppies waiting by the cathedral. if they ran over the car it would be a write off.
With an obvious taste for melodrama and sports psychology, th Doonies marched in at about 12:50, filling the road, trying to look as impossing as possible and doing a good job of it.
I managed to spot Duncan our builder in the Doonies pack before the start but that was almost the last I saw of him as he probably disappeared into the pack.
The Ba was thrown in from the Merkat cross when the cathedral clock struck 1PM.
Even though the game is, to say the least, not the fastest moving game in the world, I found it really entertaining to watch and for some unknown reason it was exciting.
I only stayed for about an hour and a half by which time they had moved across the road and about 20 yards from the start at the cross.
Admittedly there had been some movement from about 15 yards one side to 20 yards the other side of the cross and from one side of the road to the other but I would not describe it as a game based on speed.
Vast amounts of energy were obviously being expended and from about 10 minutes after the start, a constant cloud of steam was rising from the pack.
As I said, after about 1 1/2 hours I decided that I had better go and see where and how Pam was. She was sat freezing in the car in Tesco's car park (She feels at home there). Being a gentleman I suggested that she could go home and come back to pick me up later. So we both went home.
It seems that I missed all the excitement as the game ended with a rare doonie victory after only 4 hours and the last bit was a real rush down to the sea where the doonies scored.
I am not sure why I find such a generally slow game so fascinating. Possibly because the game is very real. Everbody has a side and it is very important to them and very tribal without all the bad feeling that football seems to generate. Everyone takes care to minimise injuries to either side but it is definitely not a game for the faint hearted or delicate. It is easy to imagine packs of vikings playing the same game in the same place in front of the same cathedral hundreds of years ago.
I shall definitely go next year and watch the whole game.
I have seen videos of the Ba before but it is nothing like the atmosphere of the real thing.
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