RSPBA officials have confirmed that the Grade 1 Ensemble and Drumming results from Saturday’s Scottish Pipe Band Championship at Dumbarton were placed in the wrong columns in the summary sheets.
Drumming adjudicator Mark Wilson had placed Steven McWhirter’s Inveraray corps in first place, not L/D Gareth McLees and his Field Marshal Montgomery corps as was carried in the first summary sheet. Ensemble adjudicator Gordon Lawrie had Field Marshal first and not Inveraray.
We stress that the mix up, did not affect the overall prize, just the drumming. The overall result remains the same: 1 FMM 2 Inveraray 3 SLOT 4 Boghall 5 Shotts 6 S Power
However the Drumming list should have read: 1 Inveraray 2 Field Marshal 3 SLOT 4 Boghall 5 Police Scotland 6 Scottish Power 7 Fife Police 8 Shotts 9 Johnstone 10 Closkelt.
The Ensemble list should have read: 1 Field Marshal 2 Inveraray 3 SLOT 4 Boghall 5 Shotts 6 Fife Police 7 Johnstone 8 Scottish Power 9 Police Scotland 10 Closkelt
Colin Mulhern, RSPBA Chief Executive, later released the following: ‘The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association (RSPBA) would like to publicly apologise to Field Marshal Montgomery and Inveraray and District Pipe Bands who have been impacted by a compiling error in determining the result of the Grade 1 Best Drumming Prize at the Scottish Pipe Band Championships 2023 at Dumbarton.
‘Investigations began on the 30th July having been notified of a problem. It was identified that the Drumming and Ensemble scores / adjudicators had been reversed during the data capture of the placing sheets.
‘The Association Chairman would like to apologise to both the Bands involved. The total of the placings awarded to each of the bands within the Grade 1 Final have not changed.
‘We understand the Membership depended on us to accurately compile the adjudicator placings and deeply regret we failed to deliver the high standard that you’ve come to expect from the RSPBA.
‘I am taking this incident seriously and looking at additional measures to be put in place to prevent this happen again in the future.’