An Orcadian farmer is preparing to break new ground in the pursuit of ploughing success.
Keith Marshall, from Cotland, St Ola, will plough for Scotland in the conventional class at the Five Nations Ploughing Challenge.
He will go up against ploughmen and women from England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland.
The competition takes place next weekend in Shropshire, with Mr Marshall travelling south this week where he will meet his Ford 4610 and Fiskars plough, which is being transported south by one of his sponsors.
Surprised but hugely honoured to be representing his country, Keith said the opportunity came about after competing in the Scottish Ploughing Championships last October in Caithness.
From that competition, he received a phone call to gauge his interest in competing for Scotland in the Five Nations – an achievement Keith thought could be a first for an Orcadian.
He’ll be up against four others in his class from each nation and while the event is sure to get the competitive juices going, a humble Keith just hopes to enjoy one of the highest level of ploughing competitions in the UK.
‘I’m looking forward to it’
Keith said: “If I come fifth, I’ll be doing well. I’ve not really ploughed much in this type of ploughing, where you are coming up against their top men.”
It will be the most prestigious competition in a 51-year ploughing career for 65-year-old Keith, who first started in the art when he was just 14, and has since become a familiar face on the scene.
Keith, who runs around 25 breeding Aberdeen-Angus cross cattle and 75 Texel cross sheep at Cotland, said: “I’m looking forward to it. The easy option when asked is to say I couldn’t do it. But I’ll never get another chance.
“I never once thought I would ever be asked,” he continued. “But it was because of my place at the Scottish [Ploughing Championships] that I was selected for it.”
Unlike here in Orkney, there will be no helpers to assist the ploughmen and women. From ploughing in Orkney to then turning over new soil for your country will be an all-together different experience, but Keith explained that the rules are not too dissimilar.
He will be ploughing a 100-metre by 20-metre plot, but his practice and preparation has been hampered by the recent cold snap, robbing Keith of about a week’s worth of finetuning, both the tractor and plough.
The rules areFive Nations Ploughing Challenge ‘very similar to the Scottish ploughing’
He continued: “The rules are very similar to the Scottish ploughing. The only difference here is that we have to plough an inch deeper, eight inches instead of seven inches.
“The biggest difference between Orkney ploughing and this standard of ploughing is that you don’t get so long for each aspect and it’s very tight.
“You need to know exactly what you’re doing in the settings of the plough for every move, so that you’re not wasting time.”
“You get 20 minutes to do your opening splits and then there’s a 40-minute gap that you can’t plough until they are judged.
“Then you get so long to do your crowns and then you must be finished by 2pm. It’s not very long.”
The retired BT worker has also been aided by sponsors who are assisting him with his travel costs and transporting his tractor and plough down to Shropshire.
He expressed his huge gratitude to the businesses which are already providing fantastic sponsorship, in Orkney and on the Scottish mainland, and hoped more may be able to support before he leaves.
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