He’s gone from cleaning the boots to club chairman and Finlay Noble described seeing his beloved Fraserburgh win the Breedon Highland League title again as “brilliant”.
The Broch claimed the championship for the first time since 2002, and for the fourth time in their history, with Saturday’s triumph against Forres Mechanics.
Bellslea chief Noble said: “I’ve been with the club 41 years, I started cleaning the boots, I’d been coming to the games before that.
“Jim Adams (the late former Fraserburgh chairman) and Ian Smith, who is still here, asked if I would clean the boots.
“That was 1981 and here we are. This is brilliant, when we won it at Cove 20 years ago that was a great occasion.
“But to win it at the Bellslea in front of our own folk, you can’t beat that.”
Praise for players and management
Noble paid tribute to Fraserburgh’s players and management.
He appointed Mark Cowie as manager seven years ago and added: “There a lot of hard-working folk within the club and none more so than the management and the players.
“It (winning the league) is for everyone, but especially the playing staff and it was brilliant and very fitting to see Willie West score the last goal.
“Willie’s captain, a local lad, as are most of them, and he’s one of those people that you could phone at 3am asking him to come and open something and he’d do it without any question.
“We’ve improved in league position every year Mark’s been manager. He blew us away at his interview and he was probably our best player at that point in time.
“We were thrilled with his plan, folk thought it was maybe a gamble but I never thought so.
“I’ve known Mark since he was 14 and every year we’ve got progressively better.”
