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Medals

These medals were owned by the late  Duncan Cameron (Beinn  Sgurrach), and were allowed to be photographed by his daughter Marie   The gold one is easily identified as the Macgillivray league winners medal 1925 won by Stratherrick in May 1925  which Duncan played against Caberfiedh that day .

The silver one poses a problem to identify just what was the medal was for, the initials S S C within the quadrants of the cross camans and 1912 hold all the clues .One suggestion was it was an early Strathdearn cup medal, but Foyers won the Strathdearn cup in 1913 and as there is a photo of the winning team existing and it does not include that Duncan Cameron, so this rules out that suggestion .Also there were never badges or medals handed out according to newspaper reports of the day for the Strathdearn cup, in later years the contestants of the final would  receive a photo of their teams .

The only other known regional cups was the Mactavish or the Glenmore and nationally the Camanachd around that period. so the the SSC initials do not match any of these possibilities .

The silver medal design is of a Maltese cross with thistles in between and a bronze effect centre  with the aforementioned initials and date The most likely explanation of the silver medal is that the S S C stands for Stratherrick Shinty Club and they were handed out to the players in 1912  possibly as a token of managing to win the Hussy cup against Foyers for the third time in a row since its inception in 1910.  Or was it given by the Stratherrick Club to the player of the year, I think this is very unlikely because you would have had a mention of this on the back of the medal . Another clue that point's to the Stratherrick connection is my grandfather Alex Chisholm was secretary of the club around this time, whilst going through old family photos, I came across one of my great grandmother which on the back of it had sketches showing the crossed camans and had also had thistle drawn on it( see below photo). More than possibly a rough sketch to show the silversmith that was commissioned to make the medals.  Just what the monetary workings along side were, is open to conjecture perhaps the overall costs of medals being totalled .  

If anyone has seen or in possession of similar medals or other club memorabilia please send E-mail with relevant information.

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