Buckie Thistle face Celtic hoping to do their town proud

He tells me this as he’s about to board the bus that will take Buckie Thistle’s players and staff 200 miles south to Glasgow. En route they’ll pick up a few more players in Keith before fetching their manager, Graeme Stewart in Aberdeen. And then, at the Broxden roundabout on the outskirts of Perth they’ll rendezvous with their Inverness-based men who’ll have driven down the A9 to make the connection. Then, the party will set up base camp overnight at the Garfield Hotel in Stepps before attempting Everest.

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Of all the officials who’ll accompany the Buckie Thistle players on their journey, he alone will have an inkling of what they’ll be experiencing right now: a feverish mixture of terror and hope. “I played football throughout the Highlands until I retired at 42, including two spells here at Victoria Park. I was a decent player who knew his limitations. But I lifted cups at every team I played for.

“I just hope the boys do themselves justice tomorrow. We’ve got some good, young players and they’ll want to show the crowd and the Celtic players that they can play a bit.”

As a Celtic season-ticket holder, I attempt to provide a degree of optimism without sounding patronising. “We’re a bit susceptible to cross balls into the box,” I tell l him, “and our left back can be quite wayward with his passing when you pressure him.” I tell him too about when lowly Stranraer came to play Celtic in the Scottish Cup 36 years ago and how, had they not missed a last-minute penalty, would have earned a replay. He listens with the practiced patience of the former pro who’s spent half a lifetime indulging the feckless advice of amateurs like me.

Christine is the team-bus driver who’ll take these young men to their date with footballing destiny. It’s already half an hour beyond the scheduled departure time, but she remains insouciant about the delay, as if sensing that amidst the mounting tension beginning to creep around her young charges they don’t need any other angst.

And besides, this won’t be the biggest gig she’ll be handling at the start of the year. Next month there’s a whisky festival on Speyside which will require Mayne’s Coaches to supply around 30 of their vehicles. A mere 26 are booked to take supporters to Glasgow today, part of a contingent of more than 3,000, a third of Buckie’s population. 

Buckie thistle fans outside Victoria Park, Buckie to see the team off (Image: Colin Mearns)

The departure of the Buckie Thistle team bus has become a gala day, perhaps to be re-enacted every year hence if these boys could somehow return with a result tonight.

What will be deemed worthy of “a result” though? Celtic, the holders, have won the Scottish Cup 41 times: more than any other club. They have dominated professional football in Scotland for the last quarter of a century.

Yet, Buckie Thistle have also had their hours fierce and sweet and many of them, winning all the big Highland prizes multiple times. They are a proud, well-run club whose roots go deep in the town they represent and all those coastal communities dotted around this part of the Moray Firth: Fochabers, Findochty, Portnockie and Portgordon.

As the players strike thumbs-up poses for endless photographs no request is refused: they may never again be the centre of such adulation. The throng of well-wishers - mums and dads; children and grannies - has swelled to around 400. It includes a boisterous young team of ultras bouncing and swearing from a vantage point offered by the nearby skateboarding park. They even have a mini pyro display to tell everyone that they can bam it up with the best of the SPL heavy squads.

Buckie thistle fans outside Victoria Park, Buckie to see the team off (Image: Colin Mearns)

At the entrance to the stadium, silently drinking in an occasion she thought she’d never see, is Margaret Paterson, a Buckie Thistle committee member for 35 years. “They’re just my boys,” she says. “A fair few of them actually support Celtic and the first day of my involvement with Thistle came in 1989 when Celtic sent up a team to play us to mark our centenary.”

The connections between Celtic FC and this gnarly old former fishing town are extraordinary and no-one can quite place why. Celtic were founded just one year before Buckie Thistle and local legend holds that they gifted Buckie their first set of football strips when they were founded the following year. And that this is why Buckie also play in green and white hoops.

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Celtic had also visited Victoria Park in the 1980s to help raise funds for the Spires Appeal of the town’s St Peter’s Church.

In the Social Club underneath the main stand at Victoria Park I meet David Mair, Ian Fraser and Charlie Beresford. They’re all Thistle diehards and they talk about how much this match against Celtic means to this town. “This is a proper community club,” says Ian. “Even people who might not follow football much have an emotional attachment to it. There’ll be a few hundred children going down tomorrow, most of whom play for the youth teams that Thistle organise.”

The lounge is garlanded with the battle honours of old campaigns. They include the medals won in the 1950s by one of Buckie’s greatest ever players, George Cowie during a period when Thistle dominated the Highlands. A simple statement beside the glass display case reinforces the connection between club and town. It reads: “George has donated his medals to the club so that all Buckie Thistle and Highland League supporters can view them for years to come.”

Buckie thistle fans outside Victoria Park, Buckie to see the team off (Image: Colin Mearns)

Just over there to the right of the bar is a framed poster from Buckie’s Scottish Cup match against Aberdeen in 1907. Across from it is another glass box, containing Zinedine Zidane’s boots, like meteorites from a distant planet. “Zidane wanted to play for us, but he didn’t do well in his trial,” says David with a twinkle in his voice.

In the Main Street, every shop-front has a display featuring the green and white favours and banderoles of their local team. One of the most eye-catching is in JP Pozzi, the newsagents and deli owned by David Robertson, one of the team sponsors. He too is a former Highland League footballer and is helping revive the fortunes of Buckie Rovers, another old club who have been in abeyance for years.

“Since the draw pairing us with Celtic was made, I’ve never encountered an atmosphere like this in Buckie,” he says. “One of the best things about it, I think is that it has shown the players and the officials just how much affection there is for them in the town.”

In 1970, Celtic’s legendary manager, Jock Stein brought his team north to raise funds for the families of the Fraserburgh lifeboat disaster. It was only a few days before their European Cup final against Feyenoord and some had questioned the wisdom of squeezing in a game on this jaggy, windswept coast. “We’re not as important as people make us out to be,” he’d replied. “Take the cause we’re up here in Fraserburgh playing. These are the very important people in life.”

The fishing and shipbuilding industries which once sustained this town have long gone, fatally undermined by stitch-ups between the EU and the British Government. The circus has only returned because two plastic balls in a sorting hat fell kindly for them.

Some old Highland practices will never disappear, though. In the social club, I offer to buy drinks for David Mair, Ian Fraser and Charlie Beresford. They’ll not hear of it. “You’re our guest today and it will always be our pleasure to extend our Highland hospitality to you,” says Ian.