Shinty allowed us to break hockey’s rules

‘It was dangerous: you could wield the stick at head height.’ Photograph: Ian Georgeson/Alamy

I was surprised to read that women and girls are enjoying a “breakthrough” year in the Highland sport of shinty (Report, 16 September). I was playing “shitty shinty”, as we called it, at my secondary modern in Bognor in about 1966. We were told it was Irish. “Shitty” because it was dangerous: you could wield the stick at head height, which is against the rules in more ladylike hockey.
Sue Elliott
Ealing, London

• We played shinty at my Nottingham junior school in the 1950s, and my football club, Nottingham Forest, was founded by shinty and bandy players.
Margaret Astill
Nottingham

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