Europe’s largest curling competition drew to a close with a dinner for more than 100 competitors and guests at Dewars Rinks.
The biggest cheer of the evening came with the promise from Yara UK business manager for Scotland, Peter Smith, that there would be a 32nd competition next year.
It is not only the 300 or so curlers from all over Scotland who enjoy this competition hotels, bars and restaurants in Perth receive a welcome boost at this traditionally quiet time of year.
Yara is the world’s largest distributor of fertilisers, operating in 120 countries. Area manager Alan Wood, who hosts the competition, said it was good to be able to give something back to loyal farmer customers in Scotland.
Winning for the second year in a row was the Borders and Berwickshire team of James Stark, Andrew Reed, John Cannon and Alistair Hodge.
Skip James Stark said: “We are all farmers and customers of Yara and we enjoy this event because it is competitive, with some really tough games, but still sociable like curling used to be.”
This sentiment was echoed by the runners-up, playing in the competition for the first time. Neil Henderson, Graeme Black, Stuart Henderson and David McMiken are dairy or beef farmers from Dumfries.
The starting field of 76 teams was whittled down to high road and low road winners.
The Stirling team of John Davy, Gary Rutherford, William Mitchell and Billy Beattie came out on top in the low road for the second year in succession.
They defeated the Bank of Scotland team of Jim McFadzean, Nigel Forrest and Hilary Brown, skipped by Sandy Hay from Kinross.
The special ladies’ prize was awarded by Alan Wood to the Lochgelly foursome of Wilma Brownlie, Margaret Nelson, Pat McFarlane and Mary Lamont.
Meanwhile, Fife was well represented, with two teams in the semi-finals, skipped by Robbie Stevenson from Saline and Andrew Marshall from Anstruther respectively.