Gary Innes (born 13 December 1980) is a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

musician A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...

shinty Shinty () is a team sport played with sticks and a ball. It is played mainly in the Scottish Highlands and among Highland migrants to the major cities of Scotland. The sport was formerly more widespread in Scotland and even played in Northern ...

player,

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

and broadcaster from

Spean Bridge Spean Bridge () is a village in the parish of Kilmonivaig, in Lochaber in the Highland region of Scotland. The village takes its name from the Highbridge over the River Spean on General Wade's military road between Fort William and Fort A ...

Lochaber Lochaber ( ; ) is a name applied to a part of the Scottish Highlands. Historically, it was a provincial lordship consisting of the parishes of Kilmallie and Kilmonivaig. Lochaber once extended from the Northern shore of Loch Leven, a distric ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. He is a founding member of Scottish folk-rock band Mànran.

Music

Innes has had a professional career playing the

piano accordion A piano accordion is an accordion equipped with a right-hand keyboard similar to a piano or organ. Its acoustic mechanism is more that of an organ than a piano, as they are both aerophones, but the term "piano accordion"—coined by Guido Deir ...

since 2003, and is noted for his distinctive purple accordion. He joined

Runrig Runrig were a Scottish Celtic rock band formed on the Isle of Skye in 1973. From its inception, the band's line-up included brothers and songwriters Rory MacDonald (musician), Rory MacDonald (bass, vocals) and Calum MacDonald (musician), Calum ...

on stage at their concert ''Beat the Drum'' in

Drumnadrochit Drumnadrochit (; ) is a village in the Highland (council area), Highland Local government in Scotland, local government Council areas of Scotland, council area of Scotland, lying near the west shore of Loch Ness at the foot of Glen Urquhart. The ...

on 18 August 2007 where he played to an audience of 17,500 and has continued to join the band on Clash of the Ash at many of their open air shows. This included joining Runrig for their farewell concerts at

Stirling Castle Stirling Castle, located in Stirling, is one of the largest and most historically and architecturally important castles in Scotland. The castle sits atop an Intrusive rock, intrusive Crag and tail, crag, which forms part of the Stirling Sill ge ...

on 17 and 18 August 2018 to over 50,000 people. In 2010, Innes formed Mànran who aimed to become the first band since Capercaillie to enter a

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...

song into the UK Top 40 when they released their first single, " Latha Math" on 17 January 2011. With a midweek high of no. 29 it fell short, finishing the week in 61st place, however they managed no. 1 in the UK singer/songwriter charts, no. 6 in the Scottish charts, and no. 6 in the Radio 1 indie charts. Together with Mànran and

Pop Idol ''Pop Idol'' is a British music competition television series created by Simon Fuller which ran on ITV from 2001 to 2003. The aim of the show was to decide the best new young pop singer (or "pop idol") in the UK based on viewer voting and pa ...

winner

Michelle McManus Michelle McManus (born 8 May 1980) is a Scottish singer, columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter who won the second and final series of the UK talent show ''Pop Idol'' in 2003. She currently presents the ''Afternoon'' radio show ...

, Innes created the official 2012

STV Children's Appeal STV Children's Appeal (previously named STV Appeal) is a Scottish people, Scottish charitable organization, charity appeal organised by STV (TV channel), STV and Tom Hunter, The Hunter Foundation, in aid of the STV Charitable Trust (number SC042 ...

charity single "Take You There" and performed it live on the show. The appeal raised two million pounds for under-privileged children in Scotland. Innes was musical director of the

BBC ALBA BBC Alba is a Scottish Gaelic-language free-to-air public broadcast television channel jointly owned by the BBC and MG Alba. The channel was launched on 19 September 2008 and is on-air for up to seven hours a day. The name ' is the Scottish Gae ...

Hogmanay show in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014. In 2015 Innes created Scotland's first collaborative charity folk single with a piece of music he composed called "Our Heroes". This commemorated the centenary of the

Battle of Festubert The Battle of Festubert (15–25 May 1915) was an attack by the British army in the Artois region of France on the western front during World War I. The offensive formed part of a series of attacks by the French Tenth Army and the British ...

and included a performance on the set of bagpipes that were being played by Lance Corporal Donald Patterson when he fell in battle on 18 May 1915, 100 years to the day. All proceeds were donated to Scotland's veterans charity Erskine. Innes was awarded "Instrumentalist of the Year" at the 2017 MG Alba

Scots Trad Music Awards The Scots Trad Music Awards or Na Trads were founded in 2003 by Simon Thoumire to celebrate Scotland's traditional music in all its forms and create a high profile opportunity to bring the music and music industry into the spotlight of media an ...

Shinty

Innes started playing shinty at a young age, playing for Kilmonivaig Primary and then local side Lochaber. When their youth team folded, he moved to

Fort William Shinty Club Fort William Shinty Club is a shinty club from Fort William, Lochaber, Scotland. The club has two sides in the Shinty league system, a first team which was relegated from the Premiership in 2013 and a reserve side in North Division Two. The ...

, where he developed into one of the leading players of the 2000s. He usually played at wing centre and wing forward in his formative years. He was captain and man of the match for their famous victory in the 2005

Camanachd Cup The Camanachd Association Challenge Cup known as the Camanachd Cup (or less commonly the Scottish Cup) is the premier competition in the sport of shinty. It is one of the five trophies considered to be part of the Grand Slam in the sport of shi ...

final over local rivals Kilmallie and part of the team in the club's historic league championship in 2006. He has also featured for fourteen years in the Composite Rules Shinty/Hurling International for Scotland. For the 2009/10 Shinty/Hurling International, Innes was named captain of the Scotland team. Ireland's All Star Tommy Walsh broke Innes's nose in the opening minutes of the 2010 International at

Croke Park Croke Park (, ) is a Gaelic games stadium in Dublin, Ireland. Named after Archbishop Thomas Croke, it is referred to as Croker by GAA fans and locals. It serves as both the principal national stadium of Ireland and headquarters of the Gaelic At ...

however Innes continued and scored 7 points for Scotland eventually beating the Irish 22-21. He has reached iconic status in the game of shinty, an image of him playing the sport being used by Runrig on the cover of their 2007 album, Everything You See. Innes wore his No. 9 Scotland captain's jersey on stage during Runrig's final two concerts at Stirling Castle in 2018 and then auctioned off the signed strip to raise money for youth development within the sport. The shirt sold for £4591. In 2010 Innes was named Marine Harvest and National "Player of the Year" and for his shinty and musical talent was invited to the Queen's garden party at Holyrood. Transworld Sport filmed a programme on Innes which was broadcast in 2010. Innes double career as a high-profile shinty player and musician has resulted in a lot of attention. In March 2009 Innes claimed that he knew a rival team had deliberately targeted him for injury due to his musical prowess. On 15 May 2010 in a game against Premier Division strugglers GMA, Innes scored 9 goals in a 14-0 victory. Innes claimed he was denied a record 10 by the referee didn't notice the ball returning out of the goal after hitting the back stanchion. This would have given him the record for most goals scored in one single game. On 18 September 2010, Innes scored 2 out of 3 Fort's goals against Kingussie in the 103rd Camanachd Cup final at Bught Park in Inverness. The win against Kingussie put the team's name on the trophy for the 4th year running. Innes's performance also claimed the

Albert Smith Medal The Albert Smith Memorial Medal is the award given to the Man of the Match in the final of the Camanachd Cup, the blue riband trophy of the sport of shinty. It has been presented every year since 1972 by the Smith family of Fort William in honour ...

for the second time, having previously won it in 2005. Innes retired on a high at the end of the 2014 season, restoring Fort William to the Premier Division and earning his final cap for Scotland. This was due to increased musical commitments. On 30 March 2019, Innes was named by the Camanachd Association as their first ever ambassador of The Camanachd Cup. In June 2022, Innes returned to play for the newly formed Cruachanside.

Broadcasting

From the start of the 2010 season, Innes wrote a weekly blog for

bbc.co.uk BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and BBC Sport, Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, t ...

and when he is not himself playing, he is often involved in summarising for the BBC in front of camera or from the commentary box. In 2014 BBC ALBA filmed Innes and Mànran for a one-hour documentary as the band toured across Australia, America and the UK. On 24 September 2016 Innes took over from Robbie Shepherd as presenter of '' Take the Floor''. Since 5 April 2020 Innes has also presented a Sunday show on

BBC Radio Scotland BBC Radio Scotland is a Scottish national radio network owned and operated by BBC Scotland, a division of the BBC. It broadcasts a wide variety of programmes. It replaced the Scottish BBC Radio 4 opt-out service of the same name from 23 N ...

called ''Take the Floor - Your Requests'' later renamed to ''Your Requests with Gary Innes''. Innes alongside BBC Radio Scotland presenter Bryan Burnett co-hosted BBC Radio Scotland's 40th anniversary celebrations for radio and television from the Glasgow

Barrowland Ballroom The Barrowland Ballroom (also known as ''Barrowland'' and ''The Barras'') is an entertainment venue, dance hall and music venue located in the Calton district in Glasgow, Scotland. A prominent feature of the music scene in Glasgow, the venue ...

on 4 November 2018.

Personal life

Innes was a part-time fire-fighter in the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service in Spean Bridge from 1999 to 2015 and a First Responder from 2007 to 2016. On 8 April 2017, Innes married Hannah Matheson, niece of

Karen Matheson Karen Matheson OBE (born 11 February 1963) is a Scottish folk singer who frequently sings in Gaelic. She is the lead singer of the group Capercaillie and was a member of Dan Ar Braz's group L'Héritage des Celtes, with whom she often sang l ...

Capercaillie ''Tetrao'' is a genus of birds in the grouse subfamily known as capercaillies. They are some of the largest living grouse. Feathers from the bird were used to create the characteristic hat of the bersaglieri, an Italian ace infantry formation. ...

, in a marquee on the Taynuilt shinty field. They have two daughters.

Discography

*''How's the Craic?'' (2005) *''Era'' (2017) *''Imminent'' (2019) With Box Club * ''Box Club'' (2008) With Ewan Robertson * ''Shouts'' (2009) With Mànran * '' Latha Math'' (2011) * '' Mànran'' (2011) * ''The Test'' (2013) * An Dà Là - The Two Days (2017) * ''When You Go'' (2018) * ''ÙRAR'' (2021)

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Innes, Gary Shinty players Scottish accordionists Living people 1981 births 21st-century Scottish male singers Place of birth missing (living people) People from Lochaber People educated at Lochaber High School Mànran members 21st-century British accordionists Scottish radio presenters