The art of romancing the stone

Almanack

"WE MUST keep the readers fully abreast of England's progress in Perth," the sports editor declared. "How is their form? How is their morale? Are the spectators who have made the long journey bearing up? Almanack, what are you doing cluttering up the office? Get yourself to Perth, pronto."

We know better than to disobey orders, but "pronto" was difficult. Perth is a long way from London, and we didn't arrive at the venue until 8.30pm. Just in time, in fact. In Perth, Western Australia, England's cricketers were no doubt snug in bed. But inPerth, eastern Scotland, England's curlers were raring to go.

It may seem odd to non-curling folk that the English National Curling Championships are held in Scotland. But then it probably wouldn't occur to non-curling folk that there are different qualities of ice. To a curler, there are as many kinds of ice as there are varieties of ice cream, and English ice is not the best.

For curling purposes, you measure the quality of the ice by the speed at which the stones - 40-44lbs of Ailsa Craig granite with handles - travel across the 44-yard rink. At Alexandra Palace, near London, where many of the English players curl, the stones take about 15 seconds to reach their target. At the Dewars Rink in Perth, the same distance takes about 25 seconds. Slow ice is good ice: more delicacy and craft is required in the delivery.

For the uninitiated, curling is perhaps best thought of as bowls on ice. The curlers slide their stones down the rink towards the "house", a 12ft target at the end of the rink marked with concentric circles to help with scoring. The centre of the house equates to the jack in bowls. Each member of the four-person teams sends down two stones per end, alternating with their opposite numbers, so the best possible score in an end is eight, in the unlikely event of one side managing to get all their stones closer to the target than any one of the opposition's. Matches in the English Championships (which finish today) were played over 10 ends.

One more thing: sweeping. The three team-members who are not delivering the stone bear brooms with horsehair bristles, with which they smooth the path of the projectile, taking it further down the ice, subtly influencing its direction, and incidentally clearing any stray hairs left by earlier sweepers.

One other thing: the shoes. These have one sticky sole and one smooth: curlers propel themselves across the ice with the sticky one, sliding on the smooth. They look like they are riding invisible child's scooters. There are so many more things to explain: "steals", "peels", "wicks", "guards". The game has a Dickensian vocabulary all of its own. But these refinements are for experts. The first-time spectator can easily pick up what's going on without necessarily knowing how or why.

"Curling is the most boring bloody sport in the whole world," a young man watching told us. "And I should know. I'm a player.'' He added: "I'm from Glasgow," as if that explained his contradictory nature. He was fibbing about the boredom anyway: within half an hour he was on the ice, cajoling his team-mates, shouting instructions, a one-man antidote to tedium.

It is a fascinating game to watch. The act of delivery, properly done, is a wonderfully graceful manoeuvre. The curler stands with his sticky sole against a kind of starting block, then pushes off with the stone ahead of him, holding himself almost prone on the ice, sliding along slowly behind the stone for 10 yards or so before gently releasing it into the care of the sweepers. The projectile makes a deep roaring sound as it slides gently up the ice, and the eventual collision with another stone produces a deep, resonant boom. "You don't want to have your fingers in the way when they collide," Eric Hinds, the secretary of the English Curling Association, told us.

Mr Hinds, a quietly spoken jeweller from "Down South" became twinkly eyed and voluble as he talked us through one of the matches. His son Stephen was "skip" (captain) of one of the sides we were watching, so parental pride added to his excitement. There are about 180 registered curlers in England. "The game was much bigger in the last century," Mr Hinds said, rather wistfully. He wonders whether global warming has contributed to its decline. Interest remains steady among converts now, though. "We just need more ice."

Stephen Hinds's match is an absolute thriller, tied at 9-9 after 10 ends. And Stephen, as skip, has the crucial final delivery in the extra end. It looks fine, as Eric talks it down the rink: good weight, good direction. But perhaps the sweepers are a little too zealous: the stone slides agonisingly too far, and the match is lost. "It was so close," we say, commiserating with Eric. "A miss," he says, "is as good as a mile." A sentiment with which the other England players, in the other Perth, would no doubt concur.

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