IT is a twist on the normal order that might have further baffled Jonathan Swift’s big wee man even after Gulliver had made his trips to Lilliput and Brobdingnag.

Representing the giants: the men hailing from a town with a population of around 1400, yet who can claim to have been described by the Guinness Book of Records as the most successful club team in the world.

Representing the minnows: the men of the biggest city (pop. c.600,000) in the land in which their sport was born and is pretty much exclusively played, competitively at least.

Mighty Kingussie will swagger into the smoke today for the opening match in this season’s Marine Harvest Premiership after a trip down the A9 which reverses that highway’s conventional purpose since the men travelling from the heartland to the outpost are those heading south.

As top flight shinty returns to Glasgow for the first time in 20 years, two 12-strong collections of hardy souls will pick up their camans ready to tear into battle with one another just a short walk from one of Scotland’s grandest sporting venues. Grateful as the Glasgow Mid Argyll (GMA) club is to Glasgow Life for provide them with facilities, they are very much their sport’s poor relations, so the setting, Peterson Park in Yokermill Road, is a bit different to Ibrox.

“We are probably the only club in the Premiership that plays on a local authority owned pitch,” notes head coach George Hay.

“That has tended to work against us a bit because our team leans towards the standard Glasgow type of physique, more your Willie Henderson or Jimmy Johnstone. Not the biggest but quick and skilful players.”

As in other sports the emphasis in the lower leagues tends to be towards the more physical side of the game and that is partly down to playing on poorer pitches.

“We finished second in earning promotion last season and we dropped a lot more points at home than we did away, so we are hoping that moving up into the Premiership will work in our favour as we get the chance to play on even better surfaces,” Hay continued, adding that their principal target this season is to consolidate by avoiding relegation.

Involved with the club for 40 years since being part of a generation of youngsters who were introduced to it in Blantyre in the seventies – another twist on history since it is the birthplace of missionary David Livingstone and is a football town, Jimmy Johnstone and Billy McNeill both among the products of its teams – he is proud, too, of the make-up of the current squad. Whereas, as its name suggests, GMA has traditionally relied, since formation in 1923, upon recruiting those who have moved into the city from shinty-oriented parts, this is an essentially homegrown squad.

“Nine of our starting 12 on Saturday will be players who have been developed here,” said Hay.

“Most of them started playing at the age of six, seven and eight and have grown up together. The Premiership is going to be very tough but they are in their mid-twenties and getting to their peak.”

They are, of course, merely scratching the surface in terms of the sport’s potential in the central belt.

“In small places like Tighnabruich everything in the village is geared towards a successful shinty team. In Kingussie they have something like 25 per cent of the adult population involved. If we had anything approaching that in Glasgow can you imagine how many teams there would be?” he asked rhetorically.

Obviously that level of participation is inconceivable, but his own experience as a youngster in Blantyre and now watching development officer Paul McArthur promoting shinty offers considerable encouragement.

“There is more of a buzz among the youngsters when they get the shinty kit out than there is when it’s football,” he claimed.