Peterhead finish their season with their third game in six days – but you won’t find captain Scott Brown complaining about the hectic schedule.
The Blue Toon, who secured their League One status last week, complete the 2020-21 campaign against Dumbarton at The Rock tonight.
It’s a third outing in six days for Buchan side after Thursday’s 3-1 win at East Fife and Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to Forfar at Balmoor.
Although manager Jim McInally has tried to rotate players across the three games, skipper Brown is likely to start again this evening. having played 90 minutes on Thursday and Saturday.
However, that’s not something the midfielder would be complaining about having started every Peterhead league game since 31 March 2018 – a run of 93 successive league starts.
The 26-year-old said: “I was worried I was going to lose my record on Saturday because I’d started every league game again this season.
“It’s one of those things, I’d rather play. I played 90 minutes on Thursday and did the same again on Saturday and I enjoy it.
“Playing three games in six days isn’t something I’m going to moan about.
“It tests your fitness, but it’s a credit to the boys and to Stuart Hogg (fitness coach) that we’ve been able to deal with it.
“I felt we looked the fitter side on Saturday as well, but Forfar had a wee bit more to play from than us, which probably isn’t acceptable because you always want to win every game.
“But it is hard after the high of winning on Thursday and knowing we’d done enough to be safe.”
What might have been
Peterhead will finish no lower than seventh in the League One table and could still end up sixth if they win this evening and East Fife fail to win their remaining fixtures against Forfar and Clyde.
Although Brown is pleased the Blue Toon have stayed out of trouble this term, he believes they could have finish in the top half and wants to aim for that next season.
The former St Johnstone player added: “If somebody had offered us three wins in a row and being safe going into the Forfar game we’d have bitten their hand off.
“We’ve kind of let ourselves down at points this season and if things had gone differently we could have been in the top half.
“That’s where we want to be next season and we set standards in the three games we won and we need to get back to that against Dumbarton and next season.
“The first thing is always to stay in the league and doing that is the minimum requirement.
“Some of the boys won’t be here next season, because that’s the way it goes in football, but I believe we have enough in the dressing room to do better next season.”
Winning run ended by Loons
Peterhead’s run of three successive wins came to an end as relegated Forfar won 2-1 at Balmoor.
McInally admitted after the game his side didn’t play with the same edge as they were already safe and Brown echoed those sentiments.
He said: “It’s that extra few percent that you get (from having something to play for), especially when there’s no fans – it can be hard to get going.
“I don’t think we played terribly, we did OK and played well in spells, but it was a terrible two goals to lose.
“That does make it difficult to come back no matter who you’re playing really.”
