SCOnanza 2024Edinburgh, 31 May - 2 June
SCOnanza 2024 was the second Scottish Turf Open Championships. The format was similar to the first Open events, held the previous autumn, and it was another great success - a busy weekend of events and socials, again attracting competitors from far and wide.
Full details about the whole weekend are here: Final Details SCOnanza 2024
Friday 31 May
The first event of the weekend was a fun 45 minute foot Turf "Welcome Event", which took place from 18:30 to 19:15, with optional dress code of the ESOC colours – red, green and white. The event was planned by kjtindall, and the zones were throughout Stockbridge, Comely Bank and the northern part of the New Town. The event centre was at the Raeburn Hotel, where there was socialising before and after the event, plus the prizegiving for the welcome event, and Crowdy takes on a new zone there.
Saturday 1 June
The main events of the weekend, the Scottish Turf Open Championships, were on Saturday. There were two 90 minute events:
Bike Turf event - 11:15 to 12:45
Foot Turf event - 13:30 to 15:00
The Open events were again based at the Raeburn Hotel. Zones for the bike event, planned by féarglas, were spread over a wide area stretching from Pilton to Newhaven and also Bonnington to Canonmills. The foot event, planned by Hodge, covered a smaller area, mostly south of Ferry Road, which included Comely Bak, Inverleith and Warriston.
In the evening, there was a pizza buffet at Franco Manca, just by the Stock Bridge itself. The open events awards ceremony took place there, as well as more Crowdy takes in the Stockbridge zone, which was specially extended for the occasion. After dinner drinks were just round the corner at Hamilton’s.
Sunday 2 June
The "Crazy Closing Event" was on Calton Hill from 10:30 to 11:15. This fun foot turf event was planned by ESOCWalter, and (like last year) had some very interesting zone shapes, many very long, and some very close together. Fancy dress was again encouraged, with prizes for the best outfit. The event centre was Herringbone, Abbeyhill, and there were crowdies at the specially-modified Londoneer zone.
At 11am, the new Turf round started, turning the Turf map yellow as all the zones returned to neutral. Everyone enjoyed the weekend, with plenty of chat and photos on WhatsApp throughout. Scones were a major feature.
This report from MarkkuEsoc appeared in the Turf Insider review of the May 2024 round:
“The second Scottish Turf Open Championships, this year known as SCOnanza 2024, took place over the late May/early June weekend. Based around the delightful Northern side of Edinburgh with its many ex-railway lines now repurposed as footpaths/cycle routes and the green gorge of the Water of Leith as well as an urban mix the competition areas had everything!
The weekend followed a format of Welcome foot event (Friday evening), 90 minute bike and then foot Open championships (Saturday), followed by SCOnanza banquet (Saturday evening) and then a “Crazy Closing” fun event (Sunday morning). The organisers were delighted to welcome 8 Turfers from Sweden, including some good friends who had returned from the previous year and over 50 UK-based competitors as the game continues to grow to the West of the North Sea. Many Turfers had purchased the special event SCOnanza 2024 t-shirts incorporating the logo of scones.
The Friday night Welcome foot event winner, with 577 points, was MarkkuEsoc but the victory was oh so close, beating the unlucky Suilven by a mere 0.3 points. Little did we realise that the results on Turfgame.com go down to decimal points! Saturday brought beautiful warm conditions for the Open events and planner féarglas set some excellent zones to keep 30 cyclists manically busy for the 90 minutes. 0beroff took a victory for Sweden, taking over the lead in a dramatic final 10 minutes as ultimately the battling locals; granitemike (2nd) and Dangermous (3rd) cancelled out each other’s points per hour (pph).
In the Open foot event steventon_gang led throughout, though only narrowly winning from FeTaTo who had a very strong last 45 minutes rising from the middle of the pack of 47 eager Turfers, with local Edinburgh turfer ~~~><)))> finishing 3rd. We then socialised in the evening at a local pizza restaurant on the banks of the Water of Leith, stuffing ourselves with the abundance of delicious food on offer and enjoying the post event prize giving.
Sunday morning saw the totally crazy, anything goes event...think huge zones, tiny zones, weird shaped zones, fancy dress, even a special appearance from the roving Turf-o character to gain extra points. Add in some cute and cuddly toy potatoes to be found on the slopes of Calton Hill to the East of Edinburgh city centre and what wasn't to like!
Christmas2 this time took the victory after a close run tit-for-tat finish against ~~~><)))>.
The whole SCOnanza weekend concluded with a social at a local gastropub, much discussion, brunch and plenty of teas and coffees! Sadly we all said our goodbyes to friends old and new; hopefully we’ll see you all back again for more SCOnanza action in 2025. Make sure to see what the organisers can conjure up next year - competitor feedback suggests it will be fabulous!!”
The Turf event maps and full results are available on the Turf website:
Other entries categorised under: Turf