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MANY have failed and many have succeeded in The Oban Times Spot the Shinty Ball competition since its
inception in 1994.
But one of the most enthusiastic, and unluckiest,Spot the Shinty Ball players has to be Oban’s Charlie Geddes, who lives in Nant Drive.
Charlie has entered almost every week since the competition began but has yet to hit the jackpot.
He is always the first to hand in his entry on a Thursday morning and
has, over the past few years, jotted down a short accompanying
poem with his entry each week. Charlie, who moved to Oban from Inverness in 1972, said: ‘I have never won the competition
but I have been a near miss winner three times. ‘I love doing any kind
of competition so my wife, Helen is always getting newspapers with holes in them. ‘I started putting rhymes on the entry envelope just to fill the blank space on it but I now
do one every week. ‘Even when we visit friends in Inverness I get a paper so I can enter.’
Charlie’s recent rhymes have included: The sun, the sun is shining bright; to win, to win would be alright.
Another entry was fronted with the two-liner: When oh when will someone win; all my attempts
go in the bin. But it hasn’t all been bad luck for Charlie who won a bike in an Oban Times competition in
1997 after explaining why he read the paper. He has also won the Oban in Bloom competition
for medium-sized gardens four years running. The former manager for the
clothing company, A. Caird and Sons, Charlie moved on to work
in the menswear section of Nancy Blacks in Oban. Charlie insists he
will keep trying to win the Spot the Shinty Ball jackpot but explained
his
chances of doing so in the way he knows best, with a rhyme: Here, now listen, I have to say; I really don’t know how to play!’
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