Nairn 3 Inverurie 3 - Pictures

Individual images here. Full screen slideshow here. 

And images from club photographer Donald Matheson

Individual images here. Full screen slideshow here.

It’s the season when the floodlights come on earlier each time, yesterday more light was necessary midway during the first forty-five minutes. We’ve slipped further into winter so effortlessly this year, the autumnal trips down a sunny A9 to exotic Scottish Cup destinations are far behind us now but those occasions will live forever in fanbase folklore. We’re well back into league duty bread and butter stuff but Station Park still has a lively ambience though. The hard core fan base has renewed and augmented itself and more yellow and black scarves are to be seen these days for a league fixture. I was about to say a normal league fixture but there’s no such thing in the Highland League these days.

The competition and the standard are both awesome. It’s good to see visiting support as well making their way over the railway bridge to Station Park. There is a fantastic amount of good craic between opposing fans in the Highland League this season, it’s as if we all know we are part of an extraordinary season where the product is making waves and brightening up conversations during the shorter winter months all over the north. Well done to Turriff who are the latest to show the Scottish 2^nd and 3^rd divisions what the Highland League teams are capable of and good luck to them in the replay against Morton. There are now only 7 points between ten teams. All 10 are in with a chance of coming on top of the pack after the Christmas and New Year Games which, if we are spared by the weather, will perhaps give an indication of the leading contenders as we head into the 2013 part of this season. Behind those 10 teams Keith, Buckie and Fraserburgh are still earning the points and it is only then that you see a bit of a gap with Turriff on 13 points compared to the Broch’s 17. 

What descended the fastest at Station Park yesterday afternoon? The frost or the realisation that the Locos comeback was heading for a 3-3 draw or perhaps even worse for us? Yes we didn’t get three points but we’ve had 4 from 6 off Inverurie this season and that may be a very useful statistic when the final equations go into the table later in 2013. We witnessed some fantastic football too and good goals from Wayne and Connor (2). Not the result we wanted but the outstanding campaign goes on and the usual good humour as fans queued to go back over the railway bridge into town.

Match report here.