The release of the fixture list for the remainder of this season on Wednesday morning was dissapointing especially as the fixture that everyone was looking forward to - at home to Deveronvale - has been scheduled for two week's time on Wednesday 8th April instead of a Saturday. 

Jags president Mark Duncan today said "It is dissapointing that this match has been scheduled as a midweek match, in terms of crowd attendance - Buckie Thistle v Deveronvale is one of the biggest if not the biggest fixture on the Highland League calender, if the game had been on a Saturday  then we would have been looking at a crowd of more than 1,000 supporters, as it was last season.

"We were already sold out in the Sponsors Lounge and it would have been our biggest match of the season in terms of income.  To now arrange this match on a Wednesday means that we will lose all sponsorship of this match, the crowd will be reduced by half and the takings in the Function Hall will be only around a third of what we would normally get on a Saturday.

"If it is not bad enough this match has also been scheduled on the same night as the live Liverpool v Chelsea match, I would estimate that the amount of income being lost will be between £4-5,000.

"This is just crazy in the current financial climate and it is time that common sense was used by those involved, it is difficult enough trying to run a football club these days without seeing large sums of money like this being wasted."

It has also been confirmed that the club contacted Deveronvale earlier today regarding a possible change of date to Saturday 9th May (the day of the Highland League Cup Final) but again this has been turned down by the league, as the club were informed that "the league do not want any fixtures in the vacinity of the cup final venue on match day". 

Jags president Duncan said "I wish I could say that we were surprised by the midweek date allocated, but we were not.  It is simply more of the same, in the last three years we have been told in writing that "all clubs competing for the league championship will play on the last day of the season - at the request of the sponsors" - only to see this then changed completely, we have had changes to cup final dates and there has been an "arrangement" of numerous fixtures to suit certain agendas, this season has again been exactly the same.

"There certainly needs to be big changes next season, above all we need to see a return to a fairness for all clubs."