IN the Montreal offices of Air Canada, on March 19, 1985, last-minute checks were being made on the plans for a huge uplift of North Americans into Scotland. More than 2,500 players, spectators, officials and VIPs were heading for Prestwick, and then to Glasgow, for the Silver Broom, the world championships of curling.
Across at Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall, meanwhile, Willie O’Hagan (pictured) was among the workers who were readying the ice for the showpiece tournament.
The last time the Silver Broom had been staged in Scotland was in Perth, in 1975. The “Mother Country of Curling”, Jack Webster wrote in these pages ten years later, “is determined that the worldwide fraternity will go away with lasting memories of the 1985 one.