Meet the Team – European Championship Men
With the European Curling Championships fast approaching, it’s time again to meet the teams who will be taking to the ice to represent England, starting with the Men’s team. Playing in the B-Division this season, they will be facing off against Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Ukraine, and Wales in their group.
This men’s team is one of plenty of experience, with the two Andrews having represented England a combined 26 times at men’s level, including a recent appearance in the A-Division in 2019. The front end are also well acclimatised to the international stage, with Scott and Jim having played together since their appearance at the EJCC in 2015. The two front-enders have also been playing with Andrew Woolston since 2016, with Andrew Reed joining the team in 2020. They are joined this year by Martin Gregory at fifth, whose experience at World Mixed and World Senior level will provide yet another keen eye on the game.
Andrew Woolston, or Woolly to the guys on the team, got into curling in Deeside, Wales back in 2000 when a friend of his went along and he followed. His work, initially with the RAF, took him up and down the country and had him curling at various venues. He won his first National Men’s title in 2006, curling with Michael Opel, Jamie Malton, and Ken Malton. In 2009, he joined up with Alan MacDougall in a quartet that would famously win seven Men’s titles in a row.
The present team was set up by Andrew in 2016, with Ben Fowler, Scott Gibson, Fraser Clark, and Jim Whittle. With all of the team being based around Glasgow, they were able to train and play together regularly and would go on to win the 2017 ECA Men’s title in their first season together. As players moved around and Ben sought to pursue his mixed doubles career, Andrew Reed then came on board.
For Woolly, his favourite curling experience was playing in the A-Division in Helsingborg in 2019. When asked what he’s most looking forward to now he says; “Travelling again to a new place and playing on some top ice! Most of all, enjoy the ten days with some good mates and have some fun.”
The other Andrew on the team (Radar) has perhaps the most curling experience. He used to watch his parents curling as a youngster at Kelso, saying “it was painful and boring, but the canteen had a great sweet selection”, well, you’ve got to keep your priorities right! In 1994, Radar went to Strathallan School and took up the sport again there, this time getting properly hooked and playing a few well-known players in the school leagues. He got his first taste of international curling in 1998 at the World Junior Championships in Thunder Bay. He still fondly remembers making it onto Box Office saying at “sixteen or seventeen years old, we felt we’d really made it!”
Radar’s first Men’s title came in 2004, with further wins in ’07, and ’08. In 2010, he would be a part of the Alan MacDougall quartet as well, curling with Woolly until the team split at the end of 2016. Following Woolly’s win in 2017, Radar put together a team with Michael Opel, Jamie Malton and previous fifth man Tom Jaeggi, winning the title two years in a row, before joining up with Woolly in 2020 because, in Radar’s words, “he was sick of me beating him in the opposition”. I’m sure the rest of the team might have something to say about that!
Radar remarks that it’s always a pleasure putting on the England shirt. However, the 1999 World Junior Championships at Ostersund don’t hold many happy memories for him, so he’s hoping to rectify that this time around.
The team’s second, Scott, started curling at a young age at Lanarkshire Ice rink with his dad and his grandparents, playing with the Hamilton Juniors. Whilst Scott’s school didn’t have a club like Radar or Jim, there was a staff team playing in some of the local leagues which Scott eventually ended up skipping. In 2014, Scott was approached by Ben Fowler to play at the EJCC in Prague in January of 2015, his first international appearance for England.
Scott teamed up with Ben and Woolly in 2016, heading to the ECA Men’s and winning in 2017 when the team made an unbeaten run through ten games. Since then, Scott has played at European Championships in St. Gallen and Lillehammer, as well as the 2020 World Qualification Event in Lohja, Finland. The high quality of competition and the competitive atmosphere of an international competition is exactly what Scott is looking forward to most, hoping to play as best as he can at that level.
As well as all of the English Curling, he plays with a handful of clubs in Scotland including Cambusnethan (one of Scotland’s oldest having been founded in 1789), Reform C. C. (where he plays with Woolly and Jim) and Kelvinside Academical, with whom he’s had recent national success. Among his favourite curling memories are the fun of getting to travel around Europe, visiting new places for curling.
In at lead, Jim started curling in 2005 at Kelvinside Academy, still curling with Kelvinside Academicals to this day, where he’s presently secretary. He first donned the England jersey in 2015 at the European Juniors in Prague with Scott, starting his run as a career lead – a role for which he’s been spending a fair time in the gym to build up that sweeping power!
In 2016, Jim joined up with Team Woolston as fifth man and being a part of the 2017 ECA Men’s Champion team, going to St. Gallen for his first European Championships. After the 2019 ECA Men’s, Jim took a step back from the team for couple of years to focus on work, still curling with Woolly and Scott at club level through Reform and Kelvinside. In the run-up to the 2021 Europeans, however, he was asked to come out to Lillehammer as lead – an invitation he couldn’t refuse.
For Jim, it’s hard to pick out a single favourite curling memory, but the first trip to Prague stands out. “Scott, Ben and I were good friends from university curling, and another friend and university curler, Cristina, was out there playing for Romania as well. It was great fun to be curling at that level, but amazing to be doing it with friends all around.” He does also remark that the present team have a great dynamic and that makes things so much easier and so much more fun; “we all get on, we know we can be honest with each other, and that is a huge help on and off the ice”. When asked what he’s looking forward to the most, he’s much the same as the rest of the team – enjoy the atmosphere, see old friends and make new ones, and play as best as we can through the week.
Martin joins the team at fifth man, replacing Tom Jaeggi who is stepping back this season with a wee one on the way. He got into curling after watching his wife Lesley win two bronze medals at the Europeans in 2002 and 2003 and, reckoning it must be easy, went along to give it a go. However, in his own words; “it took me about 15 years of hard work and training to be able to represent my country, so clearly it wasn’t that easy.” We know how you feel, Martin!
Martin credits skip Woolston as being one of the key people who helped him develop in the sport. In 2017, Martin was part of the rink of Andrew Woolston, Kirsty Balfour and Lesley Gregory (his wife) that represented England in the World Mixed Curling Championships in Champery. His experience playing with Woolly at this level, and at the World Seniors more recently, prompted Andrew to bring him onboard for this European Championship.
Martin is always upbeat on and off the ice and there is quite simply never a dull moment. His favourite curling memory encapsulates this perfectly; “being able to nail my last stone draw at the World Championships when we were playing against Canada, after crashing the car only 20 minutes earlier.” Supposedly he opened that conversation with the skipper by asking about the insurance excess moments before they took to the ice.
This time, the ambitions for some rather more muted shenanigans with Martin ready to “show off my skills (or lack of) on the dance-floor at the closing banquet!” He’s also keen to help the team, on and off the ice, in achieving their goals for the championships – something he’s already dived headlong into at training weekends. His enthusiasm and positivity will, no doubt, be a huge plus for the team.
The team have been hard at work over the past weeks and months, with Woolly, Martin, and Jim playing the Flower Bowl Open prior to the start of the season. Woolly, Scott, and Jim also play regularly together at Greenacres Curling Rink. Whilst the team haven’t played many events together yet this season owing to their own various work commitments, they’ve each been on the ice as much as possible. In getting in their ice-time, Scott and Jim also played the Scottish Province Championships, winning the title for Dunbartonshire Province – the humour of a Scottish Champion team having two English Champions onboard was not lost on the rest of the players that weekend!
The two weekends in the run-up to the tournament have also been scheduled as full training weekends, with the team working on practice drills, end scenarios, stone-matching drills and working on their nine-minute practice routine.
The team have also been working hard on individual fitness, with the skip rowing five days a week whilst stuck off-shore. Jim has also secured himself a sports scholarship with the University of Strathclyde whilst he finishes his PhD, giving him access to tailored strength and conditioning programmes and a wide range of support structures. Like we said – he’s keen to get those sweeping muscles in top condition! Scott, meanwhile, taken up badminton to keep up his C-V fitness, ensuring that there will be power sweeping whenever needed.
The team also go out to Ostersund this year, having all, with the exception of Martin, played in Lillehammer last year. In 2021, the team got off to a strong start with three straight wins over strong teams, but three losses followed and a win over Bulgaria in their last game wasn’t quite enough to get them into the play-offs.
Despite the disappointment last time around, the team are in high spirits for the coming championships with lessons learned from the last year. The team have had the time to learn how to play with each other, to fit the dynamic to the line-up, and are able to get on both on and off the ice even when things aren’t quite going their way. The goals remain the same as ever – take the event one game at a time, play as well as they can, and get as far as they can. The goals are realistic, but there’s certainly a desire across the entire time to aim for promotion again.
The skipper seems happy with the standard of the team and the whole team has a very positive attitude going into the Championships. From training and playing the dynamic seems good and the team seem to be gelling well. With such positive attitudes and optimism, it’s going to be amazing to see how these guys get on out in Sweden.
England will get their campaign underway on Saturday 18th November at 19.00 CET against Slovakia. If you want to follow along, results can be found here, and on the social media channels – Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.