Knotty 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 ...

team sport played with sticks and a cork

fishing float A fishing float or bobber is a lightweight buoy used in angling, usually attached to a fishing line. Angling using a float is sometimes called float fishing. A float can serve several purposes: * firstly, it serves as a visual bite indicator t ...

. It is a variation of the game of

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 ...

as played in the fishing communities of

Lybster Lybster (, ) is a village on the east coast of Caithness in northern Scotland. It was once a big herring fishing port. The Waterlines heritage museum is located in Lybster Harbour and provides information on the history and geology of Lybster. ...

Caithness Caithness (; ; ) is a Shires of Scotland, historic county, registration county and Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area of Scotland. There are two towns, being Wick, Caithness, Wick, which was the county town, and Thurso. The count ...

. It used to be played widely in the town, as was shinty in the rest of Caithness, but it ceased to be played around the end of the 19th century, until 1993 when it was revived by local enthusiasts. Cork fishing floats

It involves a stick (a "knotty"), which can be almost any form of wooden implement, and a cork fishing float as ball with varying sizes of players. Local history books suggest knotty was invented by the fishing wives of Lybster – once one of the Europe's busiest

herring Herring are various species of forage fish, belonging to the Order (biology), order Clupeiformes. Herring often move in large Shoaling and schooling, schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate wate ...

ports – to help keep their men sober when they were ashore. The sport draws from the same prevalence of stick-ball games throughout Scotland at that time, many of which became codified into shinty in other areas. With the rundown of the industry in the late 19th century, knotty fell into abeyance until local hotelier, Bert Mowat, found the rules for the game in an old Gaelic bible.

World Championship

The Knotty World Championship takes place in Lybster every year, Sinclair Bay Hotel of Keiss being 2006 champions. In 2006, the lack of cork floats made in the traditional style was seen as a threat to the continuation of the sport. The championship has not been held in a few years but the local shinty side still maintain the tradition with a new year game.

References

External links

Images of the 2006 Championship
{{Team sports Shinty Sport in Caithness Team sports