The Second March

In my opinion, the best march ever. The script couldn’t have been written better. The fixture list had thrown up an ‘away’ game at Clyde for our penultimate match and a ‘home’ tie to finish off the season, so a walk from Clyde to Inverness was born. Who’d have thought at the time the fixtures were published that these two games would have had such a dramatic effect on the outcome of the SFL First Division Championship. The full story of the walk can be found here but, basically, the 150 mile route home was:-

ITN and Gringo Jnr

Day One – Sat: Clyde (Cumbernauld) to Stirling. (14)
Day Two – Sun: Stirling to Crieff. (21)
Day Three – Mon: Crieff to Kenmore. (23)
Day Four – Tue: Kenmore to Dalnacardoch Lodge. (21)
Day Five – Wed: Dalnacardoch Lodge to Tromie Bridge (via Gaick Pass) (21) Day Six – Thu: Tromie Bridge to Carrbridge. (22)
Day Seven – Fri: Carrbridge to Daviot. (20)
Day Eight – Sat: Daviot to Inverness. (8)

There were five walkers this time around and four of them finished the walk with ease. The lessons from the first march had been learnt – almost to the full. The accommodation was all hostels or bunkhouses, which reduced the overall costs for the marchers, who incidentally, pay their own way in order to maximise the income to the charity. The route was also a good mixture of road and off-road, the highlight being the 22 miles through the Gaick Pass and the Pass of Glen Tromie.

From the outset, the marchers were on a ‘high’ after seeing ICT pull off a tremendous 2-1 victory which set up a championship decider back on home soil – could we be walking up the road to see ICT win the league? The whole event went almost totally to plan but there were occasions where routes went astray and shortcuts became ‘long’ cuts (No there werent !!!!! ITN). The weather couldn’t really have been better and the marchers were, by far, much fitter than the previous year. However, it did take its toll on one of the marchers as the steep hills at the start became too much of a climb. Again, lessons were learnt and another de-brief ironed out more creases.