Buckie Thistle

Duncan Shearer took charge of Buckie Thistle in 2004 and stayed four years as player-manager. What he built on was already there: a green-and-white team that had carried those hoops since 1908, after Buckie Wednesday were absorbed into the club.

That habit paid off again in the 2023–24 season, when Buckie Thistle beat Keith 1–0 to take the Highland League Championship for the twelfth time. The years behind the first eleven titles have blurred, but the twelfth has not, not with a scoreline that close and a rival that familiar.

Rivalry here has a name: the Fisherman's Derby, played out against Deveronvale. Cup football brings a different kind of test.

There is no academy at Buckie Thistle. Marcus Goodall and Cohen Ramsay came through that pipeline and into the first team. It is the same arrangement, in spirit, that has kept the club going since 1889: a small-town side taking in players and shaping them into something worth watching on a Saturday.