Trials Guru website is useful for many things, not least solving a mystery as to the winning of a now forgotten trophy back in the 1960s!

David Munro from Banavie, Fort William was preparing the eulogy for the funeral of his late father, William ‘Billy’ Munro who passed away on the 6th of January 2026, who rode trials under the Lochaber & District club in the 1950s and 1960s.

It was known that Billy had ridden in the Scottish Six Days Trial several times and being a local rider knew the local course very well.

There was an award called the ‘Meteor Challenge Trophy’, which was awarded to members of a club, not all riding the same machine.

David approached Trials Guru’s John Moffat to ascertain the year in which his father was a member of the victorious Lochaber team.

John Moffat started looking through the SSDT official programmes which are held in the Trials Guru Archive and discovered when Billy Munro had ridden. Then he turned to the official results and hey presto discovered that Lochaber ‘B’ team had won the award in 1961. Strangely, the 1961 results had been misprinted at the time as 1960!

The team comprised of local men, Billy McLean; Ron Thomson and Billy Munro, all seasoned SSDT competitors.

The results spoke for themselves: No. 16 – W. Munro Triumph 199cc – 141 marks – FC (First Class Award); No. 49 – W. Maclean – Greeves 250cc – 99 marks – FC; No. 171 – R.S. Thomson – BSA 350cc – 110 marks – FC. All won First Class awards in the 1961 trial.

Trials Guru’s John Moffat held the key to the mystery and immediately passed on the news to David Munro who was able to complete the eulogy for his father’s funeral.

Subsequently, when David was sorting out his father’s affairs he came across the replica that Billy Munro received at the presentation of awards in 1961 in Edinburgh after the trial.

Alls well that ends well as they say!

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