PICTURES: Rothes take the Moray derby honours against Lossiemouth and Speysiders captain Bruce Milne celebrates his recent 150th appearance for the club with a rare goal
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A derby day goal helped Rothes skipper Bruce Milne celebrate the milestone of 150 appearances for the Speyside club.
The 34-year-old former Keith and Forres Mechanics stopper nodded in Rothes' second goal in a 3-1 home success over Lossie.
In the Speysiders' previous match, a 2-0 midweek success over Banks O' Dee, Milne made his 150th appearance for the club he has captained to North Cup and Highland League Cup glory in recent years.
"I think this is my sixth season at Rothes and I might have had more appearances if it hadn’t been for Covid," he said.
"I must have had 120-odd games at Keith and maybe close to 100 at Forres so 150 is definitely the most I’ve had at any club.
"It’s also been the most enjoyable time at Rothes."
And in match number 151 for the MacKessack Park outfit, the man with the armband rose highest to meet Alan Pollock's free kick and head his team into a 2-0 lead inside ten minutes.
Greg Morrison had opened the scoring very early on and he also added Rothes' third in the second half, before Dean Stewart notched a Coasters consolation.
"It’s a rare occasion for me getting a goal so it was fine to get one. I don’t know how many I’ve scored but it wouldn’t be a lot," Milne said.
The centre back is one of a number of Rothes players who has been dogged by injury this season, but he has chosen to play through the pain barrier.
Without some key men, the Speysiders struggled to get league wins but with some of their crocked starts back in the reckoning, results have improved and a rise up the rankings quickly followed.
"At the start of the season, the performances weren’t there and neither were the results.
"In the last few weeks, sometimes we weren’t getting the results but the performances were there.
"We’ve had a really tough start to the season with injuries, the likes of Pollock and Fraser Robertson were struggling, Greg Morrison was in and out and Gary Kerr is just back.
"It was a lot of experience to lose in your team, with myself included in that when I was carrying my injury.
" was my knee to start with, I tore the cartilage in the summer and managed to come back from it but possibly a wee bit too early and I started having problems with my hamstrings.
"But I'm getting on top of it now. It was maybe a wee bit daft of me playing on but at the time we were struggling a bit for a team. Now we seem to have a squad back together and we are starting to click and get back to what we used to be like.
"Recently against Broch and Buckie we didn’t play badly for the majority of the game but didn't get the result. You always felt it was coming, and it was only a matter of time before we started getting the wins."
The flying start was key to Rothes seeing off improving Lossie in last week's derby.
"The early goals took the sting out of the game," Milne admitted. "We maybe didn’t play that well but the two goals settled us down and we were just able to see the game out from there."
A very different challenge, and a much harder one lies ahead this weekend when Rothes make the Highland League trip to face a Brechin City side yet to taste defeat in the Highland League this season.
Two years ago, Milne lifted that trophy following Rothes' dramatic 2-1 win over Buckie Thistle at Huntly, and it had given him and his team-mates a taste for glory.
"It’s a cup that the majority of the team has got good memories of winning.
"But we know what we are up against going to Brechin. They are really solid at the back and they are scoring goals for fun so it’s not going to be easy.
"But we’ve shown by going up to the Broch and competing for 90-odd minutes, we got beat but we put up a good show and that’s the league champions so if we can do it against them we can do it against everybody."
