When Scotland went to Battle of the Nations we took a small team, only 5 fighters with 1 support. We realised quickly the level of support we actually required during the fights. We were lucky to have great friends from the national teams of Luxembourg, Croatia and Australia who helped to get us ready and hydrated between the fights.

Lewis Hamilton from our team was a great credit to us all, he tirelessly helped us in and around the fights while being our flag bearer, this involved him running round the lists tirelessly waving the Saltire to generate support for our team.

While getting ready for the lists the Luxembourg team assisted Lewis by handing us weapons and correcting armour faults while cheering us on to the sounds of Alba gu Brath played the bagpipes as we fought to encourage us on to greater deeds.

Our Battle of Nations started this year is simply amazing! We were welcomed by Croatia’s own’ “Tartan Army” at the airport .That was an amazing start. Bagpipers played us down the streets and they treated us to fantastic hospitality throughout. They supplied us with awesome ‘Croatia’s Tartan Army’ t-shirts. They really made us feel very welcomed indeed.

At the tournament we made many new friends who were delighted to finally see Scotland represented in this international tournament including the band “Alba gu Brath”. I think that it was a great debut in this sport as the interest generated in Scotland has taken root to help us create the Scottish Knight League with clubs from Glasgow to Shetland who will compete against each other in our own tournaments that will in turn produce the best fighters for the National Team of Scotland on the global stage.

In the end we ended up “Battle of the Nations”-2014 with a lot of friends and supporters of Scotland.

Alba gu Brath!

Dave McNaughton,
captain of National team of Scotland