MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands' resilience in Shetlands NatWest Games

Britain's most northerly outpost played host this week to the biennial Island Games. Doug Gillon toasts the spirit of all involved.

One had only to look at the delirious scenes enacted round Gilberston Park in Lerwick last night to feel a sense of what the NatWest Island Games have meant to Shetland over the past week.

More than 6.000 people, a quarter of the total population of Shetland, encircled the field and perched on surrounding hills to witness a stirring 2-0 gold-medal win over Guernsey.

The lexicon of sport is some-times cliched, but the 24 island nations represented here are all winners. Even the supporters, some of whom attempted to row more than 200 miles to get there. What some people endure, and accept as normal for the sake of their sport, sometimes defies belief.

The farthest travelled team, from the Falklands, will return without a single medal, but with a reputation for resilience once again enhanced. Their 8000-mile flight took 58 hours to London, after a two-day delay on Ascension with an engine problem. Then they travelled from Tilbury on the Van Gogh, a cruise liner being used as a hotel, as it was at the Sydney Olympics.

Their charismatic and iconic team leader, Patrick Watts, broadcast on Falklands' radio during the conflict with Argentina, and received an MBE following the occupation. Yesterday he described the reality of sport on his island: "The golf course? No bunkers, but the shellfire craters are still there."

So it's unsurprising that his countryman, who finished last in the men's tournament, shot one round of 119, and had a best of 99 in his four circuits of Britain's most northerly course.

"We have a 25-metre swimming pool, opened in 1990 by David Wilkie (Scotland's 1976 Olympic breaststroke champion), but we have no running track - just white lines painted on the football pitch."

Those who have trained elsewhere there report anxiety over straying off the tarmac: landmines, to which the odd dead sheep testifies.

Watts broadcast by mobile telephone this week to the station of which he was once manager. He was also once the local correspondent for the BBC, Reuters, the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail.

Commentating on the Falklands' 2-1 victory over Saarema may not rank with his airtime as the invaders marched in, but it was another landmark. "One of the biggest surprises in our sporting history" said Watts. "After all, we have a population of 2500, and just 80 footballers. And many of them are too old for this.

Unfortunately there was a power blackout with three remaining minutes to go this week, and we went off the air. Everyone was listening back home. We are deep in winter there, dark nights, and it's something to cheer people up. But it was so cold that fuel for the generators waxed up, and transmission was cut. They were going ballistic, not knowing whether we had hung on to win. Next thing my mobile rang, and it was the father of Wayne Clement, the player who had given us a 2-1 lead. He knew my number."

Everyone on the island must surely know Watts' number. He epitomises their defiance. "This is important to us, because 23 years after the Falklands War, Argentina continues to press its claim to the Islands. The Island Games offers an opportunity for the Islanders to remind everyone that they are still British. We want to live under the British flag.

Argentina has stopped allowing charter flights to overfly them to Chile. This damages our tourist trade. Lots of people are losing out, they are even hindering people wanting to visit war graves, and harassing and boarding ships in what are Falkland territorial waters."

Not surprisingly perhaps, the Falklands best sport is shooting. Their Territorials even beat the regulars at marching and shooting contests, but their best event is now off the games programme. "Pistol legislation in Britain has ruled it out," said Watts, "and full-bore rifle. That's a big miss for us."

Raising funds among such a small population makes it difficult to send a team. Those in Shetland have paid around 1,400 each. It would cost much more but for the island's many friends. There is the Falkland Islands Association in London. Many of those who saw service in the South Atlantic are happy to send cheques. Some go even further back.

Watts, who has also been chef de mission of the island's Commonwealth Games team, recalled a 20 pounds donation from a former World War II sailor from HMS Achilles. He recalled with gratitude "the tremendous hospitality and welcome accorded to him and his fellow sailors by the Falklands inhabitants when HMS Achilles returned from victory over the Graf Spee at the Battle of the River Plate." (Glasgow Herald).-