Young footballers playing in an amateur competition as part of Grantown’s 250th anniversary celebrations will today be able to reach out and touch the Scottish Cup.
Victorious Inverness Caley Thistle players will visit Speyside Thistle’s home ground of Seafield Park to show off the silverware as part of its continuing roadshow to mark its historic first major trophy.
Black Park, as it used to be known, is the venue for a range of sports events today before the cup is displayed at 6.15pm.
The town is buzzing with a week-long feast of activities marking its own history. There is a packed programme of events still to come before it reaches a climax on Sunday.
Today’s celebration of sport also features bowls and a vintage, in-costume, golf afternoon with the local club rejigging the course to temporarily replicate its original nine-hole arrangement.
Local councillor Jaci Douglas has been part of the support crew, donning various costumes herself as part of the festivities and even posing as a live model in the window of the Highland Hospice shop earlier in the week.
She said: “It’s been a rollercoaster of events, something for everybody at all times of the day.
“The whole town has gotten on board. Everybody’s dressing up. There’s music playing, there’s food. Shops are all involved. It’s been a great team effort.
“We’ve had tonnes of visitors coming and there’s a fantastic buzz in the town. We’re going to keep that going right into Sunday when there’s a big picnic in the square from 2pm.”
Event coordinator Bill Sadler said: “It’s a wonderful community event that we’ve got going with brilliant music. We’ve had all the High Street shopkeepers in costume, lots of people and music in the street.”
The week’s programme has featured a kaleidoscope of indoor and outdoor events, many in period costume, from a food fayre and genealogy sessions to funfairs and concerts.
The eight-day festival, which has been organised by the Grantown Society, is celebrating the laying of the first stone of the first building in the town a linen centre.
Events will culminate on Sunday in a big open-air picnic, “great Grantown cake bake” and dance and drama presentations, and tolling of bells to mark the 250th anniversary.