Buckie will soon have a full-size all weather synthetic turf pitch, due to a major investment by "Sportscotland".

Moray Council will recieve £214,151 from the building for sport programme towards the provision of the pitch which will be the first of its kind in the area.

One of the main driving forces for the new pitch is Buckie Thistle President, Mark Duncan, who today said "I am delighted with the news that the application for assistance has been approved by Sportscotland, this is a major boost and clears one of the major hurdles for the project to go ahead". 

"As most people will be aware this is something that I have personally been pushing for over the last five years.  A  number of meetings have taken place over this time, at each of these  meetings it was important to keep emphasising just how important it was that this facility was brought to Buckie.  It has at times been really frustrating, but  at no time did we ever give up and this is fantastic news for Buckie and the surrounding areas."

Duncan continued by saying "This will be the biggest thing to happen for football in Buckie in the last 40 years and will open up football at all levels throughout the community.  A great number of local teams will immediately benefit including ourselves at Buckie Thistle, Buckie Rovers, the three welfare league teams Buckie United, Cullen, Portgordon Victoria, Buckie Thistle Boys Club and schools football which has started up again in the last year or so".

"The new facility will also become a venue for SFA coaching courses.  We hope to start a "Jags in the Community" programme, where we would like to introduce the coaching of youngsters by our coaching staff and first team players.  The pitch will also be used for "midnight league football", as well as the start of leagues for people over the age of 40 and 50 as they currently do in countrys such as New Zealand."

"I would also like to see girls football back in Buckie, it is something which was very popular 12 years ago, when there used to be around 60-80 girls playing at Mersons Park, the new pitch will also be used by other sports such as hockey, rugby, cricket and running for training."

"The new facility will ensure an excellent, modern training facility with a clean, consistant, playing surface, floodlit and with new changing facilities."

"These days kids are all good at playing football on a computer, this new facility will now get them out of the house to play the game and this will be good for their health and for the health of the game itself."

"Buckie Thistle Boys Club will really benefit, they had 100 boys playing four years ago which has now risen to the current total of 170, we would hope that the numbers will get up to 250 - 300 in the years ahead."

"With the new pitch there will also be an increase in the amount of people wanting to get involved as helpers and coaches.  Thanks should go to all the existing coaches, not just David "Parro" Findlay and Graeme Roy who have served the club for a number of years now, but also to our new coaches, Mark Russell, Jimmy Brindle, Graham Fraser and all of the coaches at the boys club, who are all doing a fantastic job, freely giving up their own time to help coach all the kids involved.  They will all be delighted when this new facility is completed."

Work on the new pitch is expected to start during the schools summer holidays with completion at the end of September .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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