Scotland’s first Friendship Cup victory in a decade

In July five of Badminton Scotland’s players travelled to Malaysia to compete in the Friendship Cup as well as experience some world class training at the National Training Centre. Jonathan Paris, Lewis Haan, Scott Theodus, Ciaran Henderson and Peter Yang were accompanied by Isa McArthur who has been taking Badminton Scotland members for over ten years to compete.

The Friendship Cup is of incredible significance to Isa who helped create it in collaboration with international player Dato Jack Koh who runs the Sentosa Centre, training over 3000 students. Up until this year it had always been won by Dato Jack’s team.

The result was incredibly tight with it being 3-2 going into the final match before Scotland clinching their first victory of the Friendship Cup. The Scottish victory was an incredibly emotional victory due to personal connections and memories attached to it.

“To win it meant a lot, the guys were amazing and massively benefited from the training they received.”

Whilst out in Kuala Lumpar the boys trained under an impressive selection of coaches alongside Dato Jack. These included Ismail Saman former world no 6, Tan Choong Yen, Kwan Yoke Meng and Ivan Tan former Malaysian national player. All coaches provided invaluable training and advice; instrumental in the pioneering victory of the Friendship Cup.

They were also lucky enough to be invited to the Badminton Malaysia’s National Training centre to observe the national players and the high standard of the program.