Banks o’ Dee’s Neil Gauld has no intention of slowing down after reaching another goalscoring milestone.
Those goals took Gauld to 354 at Highland League level during a career in which he has also turned out for Huntly, Inverurie Locos and Formartine United.
What was significant about his midweek strikes was that it took Gauld above his former Formartine team-mate and friend Cammy Keith who scored 351 goals.
Although the 35-year-old still has some way to go to reach ex-Elgin City striker Willie Grant’s total of 450, which is believed to be the record for a Highland League player.
Gauld said: “It was a standard hat trick – a penalty and two tap-ins.
“But I’m delighted, it’s a proud moment for me to go above Cammy, that’s 354 goals now at Highland League level.
“I met Cammy at Kevin Bridges a couple of weeks ago, he also texted me after my hat trick at Wick.
“We still keep in touch and we get on very well. Cammy is an absolute legend who won numerous trophies and was player of the year on multiple occasions.
“So to have scored more goals than Cammy is a proud moment for me.
“I’m not sure what number I can get to, I suppose 400 would be the next target, but I’ll need to see how the legs hold up.
“I don’t think I’ll reach 450 like Willie Grant but I’ll try to keep going.”
Sides clash again
Dee were beaten 5-4 on penalties in the Shield following a 3-3 draw at Bellslea, and the sides meet again this evening on league business at Spain Park.
Gauld added: “We’re fired up after what happened on Tuesday. We feel we’re good enough to battle with the top teams.
“Buckie and Fraserburgh were the top two teams last season and we’ve drawn with them both in our last two games.
“We were in front in both games so we’ve shown we can compete.”
Meanwhile, Fraserburgh’s Kieran Simpson believes they will need to defend better if they are to win tonight.
The 21-year-old centre-back was disappointed with the goals the Broch lost in midweek.
He said: “It’s a tough game, but we know what we’ll be up against.
“Hopefully we can defend a bit better than we did on Tuesday night.
“It’s always annoying when you lose goals like we did, but the other side of the game in terms of the way we played out was pretty good.
“We did lose a couple of slack goals, however, towards the end Banks o’ Dee had a lot of long throw-ins but we defended them really well.
“We want to keep going as far as we can. The Aberdeenshire competitions are short and sharp and you can quickly get into quarter-finals and semi-finals which is good.
“In the league, we need to try to keep going every week winning games and see where that takes us.”
