Orkney Badminton Association is affiliated to the national governing body of Badminton Scotland. We hold internal leagues and compete annually against the neighbouring counties of the Shetland Isles and Caithness from the Scottish mainland. In 2016-2017 Orkney seniors had a record-breaking season winning all 4 county matches, including the Inkster cup against Shetland and Pentland Cup against Caithness, gaining them a nomination for ‘Performance of the Year’ at the Orkney Sports Awards 2017.
There is a large contingent of junior players in Orkney who play and also compete in Inter-County matches at under 13, 15 & 18 age groups. Recently the OBA juniors have received significant support from Cooke Aquaculture to assist with training costs and providing strips.
We practice and host matches in the Picky centre, our local leisure centre, which has an 8 court hall and the 4 court hall within Kirkwall Grammar School. These, and other smaller facilities, are also used by members of the community to take part in the sport. OBA are focussed on developing the sport in the islands which includes a mixture of accessing high quality coaches from the mainland and also investing in the education of our local coaches.
Annually OBA host the KT Championships, a senior tournament welcoming players from Shetland and mainland Scotland, and have also hosted other large scale events, most recently the Highland Junior Restricted in 2017, for players in Orkney, across the Highlands, Shetland and Western Isles.
OBA have been represented at various Island Games, including the most recent games in Gotland, with a team of 7 players.
For more information please see our website (http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/OBA/) or we also have a very active Facebook page for both our senior and junior sections.