Rothes made a little bit of Highland League history at the weekend when they fielded two trialists with a combined age of 106.
But the veteran duo are not planning on playing again after the club’s 7-0 loss at Wick Academy.
Committee man and former Rothes midfielder Derek Thomson, 51, who is in charge of team affairs until a successor to Paul Lamberton and Willie Duncan is found, came off the bench after only 18 minutes when Craig MacMillan picked up an injury.
But he is a comparative youngster compared to another former Mackessack Park favourite, 55-year-old Gordon Younie, who led the frontline doggedly for the entire 90 minutes.
Reflecting on last weekend’s “Dad’s Army” line-up, Thomson said: “We were very short of players last Saturday. In fact, a couple called off when we were on the way to Wick, so I had to put myself on the bench but when Craig got injured early on I had to bring myself on in central midfield.
“I’ve never been so pleased to hear a final whistle in my life as by the end of the 90 minutes I’d pretty much ran out of steam.
“But Gordon Younie, who played alongside me in the Rothes midfield in the mid-1980s and later ran in the London Marathon – played up front at Wick for the whole game.
“Gordon, or Gogs as he is better known, is now 55, so the rest of the players here have nicknamed him ‘Britvic’, although to his credit he took it well.
“But Wick Academy are a very good football side. They just knocked the ball about with their one-touch game and we were well beaten, although once again our lads gave it 100% effort.”
Thomson, who made his Highland League debut at the age of 15 for Buckie Thistle before moving to Nairn County with his mentor and physical education teacher Malcolm Cowie, now president of schools’ football in New Zealand.
He later moved to Leicester City before returning north for his first spell at Rothes.
He then played for Cove Rangers and Forres Mechanics before returning to Mackessack Park. He hung up his boots, or so he thought, in 1995.
Younie, who along with Thomson played in the 1986-87 Rothes side which lost the Qualifying Cup final 2-1 against Inverness Caledonian, is still playing football for Tomintoul in the local welfare league.
He said: “The new Rothes chairman, Ian Paul, phoned me at 9.30pm on Friday night. I thought he was going to talk about the new club lotto we are setting up but when he asked me if I could help them out by playing at Wick I thought he was winding me up.
“I had to do a wee bit of rearranging ahead of the trip to Wick, as I was going to be taking my daughter, Tamara, to her driving lesson in Elgin at eight that morning.
“I was going to go to the game anyway. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of playing in the Highland League again after all these years, I did have a wee half-chance near the end but, unfortunately, it went wide.”
Meanwhile, the Speysiders will start interviewing for their new manager to replace Lamberton and Duncan tonight.
It is believed 14 candidates have applied and Rothes expect to have a new man in place within the next 10 days after secondary interviews have been carried out.