Buckie Thistle manager Graeme Stewart puts positive spin on Victoria Park club's Highland League fixtures congestion
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Buckie Thistle face a major fixtures backlog in 2024, but manager Graeme Stewart hopes it can be the springboard for a run of results.
Stewart was frustrated when Saturday’s scheduled match at home to Clach was postponed less than an hour before kick-off, with the ref declaring a small section of the Victoria Park pitch unplayable.
A combination of adverse weather conditions and Jags’ cup runs have left them to fall behind on league games - they have 23 still to play in little over half of the campaign.
“It could go both ways,” Stewart said. “If we got on a good run and picked up very few injuries, it could be a good thing because the boys get confidence from all that and they prefer playing games to training anyway. They would be playing two games a week instead of training and I’m sure that’s what they would rather do.
“However, if results didn’t go our way, a heavy run of games might work against us. We will just have to wait and see what happens - but we do need to get games on now, starting this weekend at Turriff.
When the teams arrived at Victoria Park on Saturday for the match, Stewart said at first glance he though the surface looked like “a bowling green”.
“It was a bit of surprise when we heard there was a concern,” he said. “But there was a section that he was worried about. It was not waterlogged, it was just soft.
“It’s not as if there was any water on the surface, just very soft. Both teams wanted to play the game but I’m not going to have a go at the referee because he has to think about players’ safety and as much as we wanted to play, fair play to him.”
Jags even enquired about playing the match on the nearby astroturf park at Buckie High School, but because it wasn’t a registered surface for league football, it couldn’t be played.
They couldn’t even play a friendly match so instead both teams agreed to have a training match over two 30-minute halves to get some fitness into the players’ legs and ensure their travels that day hadn’t been completely wasted.
Should Jags’ match at Turriff go ahead this weekend, it will be their first league outing in four weeks.
With champions Brechin City losing for the second time in three games on Saturday, Buckie are well placed to overhaul the four clubs above them if they win their games in hand.
Turriff pulled off a superb 4-1 victory away to Inverurie Locos, bossed by their former manager Dean Donaldson, and Stewart is wary of the talents of a young group of players coming through the ranks at The Haughs.
“That was a great result for them on Saturday and they always give us a tough game,” Stewart said. “They’ve got a very good young team which ‘Deano’ spent some time developing and now Warren Cummings has come in and put his own ideas in place.
“We know how good they are and how well we will have to play to get the result we want.”
Andy MacAskill is still three weeks away from a comeback from a broken arm, but Shaun Wood is back in action following his fracture last season and Marcus Goodall is back in full training and likely to return to the squad this weekend.
Kevin Fraser’s surgery was more complicated than anticipated and although the operation was a success, he is a few months away from playing again.
