42

The Haughs

Wednesday 1^st April 2026

The worst of winter is (hopefully) behind us now. The clocks sprung forward this past weekend meaning lighter evenings and even Aberdeen has had temperatures into the mid-teens this week. As a result I decided to make the most of the conditions and try to squeeze in a few more games before the end of the season.

The ideal way to get in extra games at this time of year is the Scottish Highland League. The teams in the Highland League stretch from Brechin City to the south (although they will move to the Lowland League next season if they don’t win promotion back to the SPFL) to Wick Academy in the north. This is a round trip of 430 miles and roughly 10 hours of driving, no small undertaking for an amateur team. The teams also play almost universally on grass pitches and this fact, along with typical winter weather in the north of Scotland means lots of postponed games. The Highland League play their midweek games, largely rearranged fixtures, at 8pm on Wednesday evenings, perfect for a post work trip to some of the grounds closer to Aberdeen.

So far the only Highland League team that I have seen has been Banks o’ Dee and that was in a Scottish Cup glamour tie against Ross County. This would be my first experience of the league itself and what a way to start with 11th hosting 9th in a game that means absolutely nothing to either side… Nairn County (9th) are 26 points off the league leaders Brora Rangers and Turriff United (11th) are 32 points clear of bottom placed Rothes, both teams have just four games left.

Despite having lived in the northeast of Scotland for 17 years now I’m fairly confident in saying that I have never been to (or even passed through) Turriff before. Having let the worst of the Aberdeen rush hour traffic clear I set off in steady rain that was doing it’s best to disprove my theory that the worst of the winter weather was behind us. I made good time on the journey to Turriff and arrived with time to quickly see the only attraction of note in the town. The Turra Coo is probably the only statue in the country commemorating the opposition to the introduction of national insurance payments. It’s actually quite an amusing story but rather than retell it myself I’ll just link to it here instead.

I wandered down towards the ground and found a small (muddy) path that looked as though it would be a shortcut and avoid the main road. Luckily I was right and within a couple of minutes I had reached the bottom of the path, crossed a small stream and arrived at the ground. For a club of this level the ground was very impressive. There were a couple of training pitches, a main building which housed the changing rooms and a small two tiered stand behind one of the goals, another covered small stand on one side of the halfway line, and a covered area for the two benches and some standing capacity. The pitch was also in pretty good condition for this stage of the season. All in all I’ve seen much worse set ups for multiple clubs within the SPFL!

The weather had cleared up for my walk to the ground and stayed fine throughout the warm ups and the start of the game. Nairn County got the game underway and it didn’t take them long to carve out the first chance but it was deflected at the last moment and ended up going wide for a corner. Turriff were equally keen to start on the front foot though and they linked a few good passes together to create a chance for their striker (and the Highland League’s top scorer) Miller Keir but his finish was just wide. Almost immediately though they had won the ball back and were breaking forward. Both Keir and MacKenzie Taylor were screaming for the pass but Ritchie Massie kept pushing forwards and took the shot himself from the edge of the box placing the ball past Tom McHale for his first ever goal for Turriff just five minutes into the game.

Shortly after the opening goal the improvement in the weather was brought to a swift end. The heavens opened and freezing sleet was coming down in weather that was more reminiscent of January than April. I began to regret my decision to be so cheap as to forego paying an extra £2 to be allowed into the covered stand alongside me but was very grateful for the waterproof trousers that I had elected to wear. If the wintery weather was impacting on the few foolish fans that were standing in the exposed areas of the ground it was nothing compared to the impact on the game. The ground was so slick that passes were racing away from players who were struggling to keep their feet. It was a blessed relief when things dried up around half an hour into the game.

Once the weather cleared up it was Turriff again who made the most of the improved conditions. A brilliant crossfield pass picked out Massie who controlled the ball and picked out Taylor in the box who flicked the ball on to Keir in the six yard box and he had no trouble in beating McHale to double Turriff’s lead. Strangely Nairn looked much better after conceding their second goal but they couldn’t make any serious inroads on the Turriff goal before halftime.

I decided to wander round the pitch to keep warm during the halftime break and watch the second half from alongside the dugouts. Within seconds Turriff were attacking again and won a corner just in front of me. The Nairn players were furious with the linesman and from my perspective they had a point as it seemed fairly clear that Keir had got the last touch. To add insult to injury Turriff scored from the set piece as Massie rose highest to nod the corner home.

Coming just two minutes into the second half it felt as though this would kill the game off and for a long period it seemed to have done so. As the game moved into the last 20 minutes though Nairn decided to throw everything they had at the game. Initially this was without any discernable threat to the Turriff goal though with a series of shots going high and wide. One of these was so wayward that it cleared the 20ft high net behind the goal and disappeared off into the night. One of the Turriff officials was stood beside me and had been off collecting balls at various points during the second half. When this particular ball soared out of the ground he looked at me dejectedly and just said, ‘that’s one for the morn’.

Nairn’s determination did eventually pay off though. With 15 minutes to go Benjamin Kelly pulled a goal back and the players visibly lifted and started playing with more intent. This was almost immediately undermined when Taylor bullied his way through the Nairn defence but he dragged his shot wide and Nairn had a reprieve.

They piled the pressure on even further in injury time when a looping effort was turned into his own net by Owen Kinsella and at this point the Turriff fans around me were fearing the worst and bemoaning their sides ability to concede late goals. They almost managed to throw it away when a long shot from Nairn flew inches over the bar and brushed the top of the net as it went past. The Turriff players (and manager) were screaming for the final whistle and they eventually got their wish as they just about managed to hang on to the win and narrow the gap between the two sides in the table.

The game was thoroughly entertaining from start to finish and for £12 was an absolute bargain. I’ve seen some dross in the SPFL this season and this was easily the best game that I’ve seen this calendar year. On this evidence I’ll be back for more games in the Highland League in the future.

The Facts

• Ground
  • The Haughs
• Home
  • Turriff United
• Away
  • Nairn County
• Competition
  • The Highland League
• Result
  • 3 – 2
• Scorers
  • Ritchie Massie (2), Miller Keir | Benjamin Kelly, Owen Kinsella (og)
• Attendance
  • Not announced
• Cost
  • £12
• Total distance travelled
  • 68 miles
• Transport
  • Car
• My MotM
  • MacKenzie Taylor, the stadium announcer gave it to Ritchie Massie and I can completely understand why but for me Taylor was the player that Nairn couldn’t handle at any point during the game. He was a real handful down the right wind and I don’t think Nairn leftback, Jonathan Bain, got the ball off him once all night.