Adam Porritt wants to do Nairn County proud after his short sabbatical made him fall back in love with football.
The defender stepped away from the game in April after wife Nicole gave birth to their second child.
But Porritt returned to the Wee County in August and is determined to help the club climb the Breedon Highland League table.
Nairn take on Turriff United at the Haughs and the 27-year-old said: “I’ve really enjoyed coming back.
“Results haven’t gone our way – but personally I’ve fallen back in love with football.
“Having that small break away made me want to do better for the club and for the community of Nairn as a whole.
“Hopefully we can start producing results and making people proud of their team again.
“It was family reasons (behind his decision to take a break), my missus had just had our second child and I needed to be at home more.
“It wouldn’t have been easy for my wife to be at home on her own with a newborn for the time I was going to be away with football.
“She has been really supportive about me returning to football and I’ve got a lot of good people around me, which is really nice.”
County aim to improve
Nairn sit 12th in the Highland League and Porritt believes they should be higher.
He added: “It’s been frustrating, but a lot of the parts have been OK.
“We’re not putting a complete game together yet, which has been our downfall.
“We can have a good 45 minutes, 60 minutes or 70 minutes, but we haven’t put it all together for 90 minutes.
“We’ve got the squad to cause teams problems and we want to be in the top half of the league.
“We shouldn’t be in the position we’re in with the talent we’ve got at the club.”
Turriff look for lift
Meanwhile, Turriff manager Dean Donaldson is looking for an improvement from his side after they were beaten 5-0 by Brechin City in midweek.
United sit 16th in the table and Donaldson said: “Brechin were very good and they blew us away early on.
“Defensively we were poor and that’s not just the defence it was the whole team.
“We’ll have to pick ourselves up, but we know where we’re at, we’ve got young players.
“No disrespect to Nairn, but they have been up and down like ourselves and I think both teams will be hopeful they can get a positive result.
“Our players have shown through the season that they can perform, it’s just trying to get it on a regular basis.
“We rested a couple of players and hopefully they provide the freshness I’m looking for.”
Team news from across the Highland League
Elsewhere, Buckie Thistle are missing Callum Murray, Shaun Wood, Marcus Goodall, Declan Milne and Adam MacLeod for Clachnacuddin’s visit to Victoria Park.
Ross Logan is out for the Lilywhites, while Ally Gillies is a doubt.
Keith welcome Brora Rangers to Kynoch Park. Liam Strachan and Rhys Thomas are suspended for the Maroons with Tom Andrews, Craig Reid, Liam Duncan, Connor Grant and Luke Emmett also out.
Kieran Mooney, Przemyslaw Nawrocki and Kieran Yeats return. The Cattachs are missing Andrew Macrae and James Wallace.
Brechin City – who have won 12 of their last 13 matches in all competitions – meet Lossiemouth at Grant Park.
The Coasters are boosted by the return of Ryan Sewell, Logan Ross and Jared Kennedy.
Assistant manager Ian Campbell said: “We are going to Brechin and instead of being apprehensive about these games, the boys are all looking forward to them.
“It shows we are moving in the right direction.”
Deveronvale will look to bounce back from their Aberdeenshire Shield exit when Fort William visit Princess Royal Park.
Tommylee Taylor remains in interim charge of the Lochaber side, who will be playing their first fixture since November 3.