Jimmy Shaker

Deveronvale? More like Deveronfail.

You’d have thought after watching Strathspey complete a league double over Vale today, Banffers would be keeping quiet. They are, however, not a clever people.

Another stellar contribution.

‘Always a tough place to go, they’re a team still with plenty to play for ahead of the close season so we know it’ll be a difficult afternoon, but the lads are well up for it and desperate not to repeat the midweek result. Hopefully the fans have plenty to cheer at full time, they’ve been great all season and we need to keep them onside’. Something like that?

Not in this league it ain't. Likely (and eventual) SHFL champions lap up the pressure. Points dropped in the last ten games of the season... 2022/23 - Brechin (winners) - 4; Buckie (runners up) - 5 2021/22 - Fraserburgh (winners) - 0; Buckie (runners up) - 2 2018/19 - Cove Rangers (winners) - 4; Brora Rangers (runners up) - 8, all from draws 2017/18 - Cove Rangers (winners) - 6, all after clinching the title; Formartine United (runners up) - 0 If a team is into the home stretch and still fucking up, they probably ain't winning the league.

Your two best sources of general SHFL information are FitbaNorth.com, every Deveronvale fans favourite Highland League website, or its Twitter cousin, @fitbanorth. I need to go round to the BBC offices with two very big men and a blackjack, see if I can’t sort this out.

I cannot believe you’re going to f**k this up.

Is there still a gap? Yes. So it’s not been closed. It’s been narrowed. Fucking rubes.

Why the f**k are you relying on the BBC for information on the Highland League? Buckie won but they haven’t closed the gap.

You’re not going to BELIEVE what these clowns are up to tonight.

I’ve no doubt Buckie will be as well. That squad of hammer-throwers won’t be playing for free. The reason for them desperately trying to get home games on at Queen Victoria Park wasn’t just to save their fans travelling, I’ll say that much.

There you go. A favour from Lossie. The league is all but giftwrapped. Sort your shit out and finish the job, will you.

As for Buckie today, eight minutes effort, one moment of quality, and then a full second half of playing like rubes. Off the field, a Buckie blazer was caught vandalising seats in the stand, their manager refused to shake hands at full time, their squad didn’t come back to the bar for post-match hospitality, and their fans all fucked off with ten minutes to go. You can’t buy class.

That was the night Spurs opened their new stadium and we stole the headlines on SSN with that tweet.

Experience tells me Keith’s pitch was dubby, a bit heavy in places, but essentially playable, and the referee has made a c**t of it. No side in this league played on a bowling green this weekend. When Lossie were at Keith last February the referee gave Keith more time to get it playable, but even in its untouched state it was better looking than it had been on our last visit, and in better shape than Huntly’s had been earlier in the month. Too much of this bullshit from officials this season.

Buckie phoned Lossie with three hours notice to ask for the pitch, and took the hump when told it wasn’t prepped for a game.

Mercifully only one of those is involved in the title race, and we’ll find out on Wednesday if they’re still involved in this. Still a bizarre piece of scheduling, tho.

Goalless against BOD. You guys crack me so consistently… up.

This used to be a proper league. Now it’s just the Moray Welfare with slightly better Twitter.

Was the rumour when he was at Elgin, certainly.

Price getting a win percentage in the mid- to high-30’s at Elgin is terrific, that’s no stick to be beating him with.

Why was Price REALLY hired?

Still tho, all those clean sheets against Lossie must count for something, right?

That’s right, Ice… Man.

The SHFL since Gavin Price took over…