Watson Park, Cruden Bay
Tonight I had the choice of whether to visit Maud for their game v Inverurie Locos, or Cruden Bay for their friendly v Fraserburgh. My original choice was to go to Maud; however, their game had been switched to the local Garioch Sports Centre in Inverurie. This meant I opted to visit Watson Park of Cruden Bay. I arrived in Cruden Bay at around 7.15 in time for a 7.30 kick off but as I pulled up to the pitch, I realised there was no sign of any football game on. Instead there were a group of youths playing football on the field, with some adults playing tennis on the courts adjacent to the field. I began to think the game had been cancelled despite me double checking the Fraserburgh website. I looked up Cruden Bay and found that they had moved from the centre of the village and were now situated on the outskirts in a new facility. Much to my relief, I searched for it on google maps and indeed found another pitch outside of the village and I made my way there. With hope that I had not travelled 30 odd miles for nothing, I pulled onto a very uneven, rocky road signposted for Watson Park and in the near distance, I seen what I was looking for.
There were quite a lot of cars here with the majority of them parked inside the ground either behind the goal (which I will never understand) or along side the pitch. There were no spaces left inside so I parked outside the ground on some grass banking. As I made my way to the ground I noticed about 40 cows from the field next to the park all lined up, staring at me as if I was the centre of attention. It was quite funny really as they looked as if they were to watch the game as wel. Inside I was approached by an old gentleman who offered me some raffle tickets and for a very rare time, I decided to take some. Although I had presumed he was looking for admission, it turned out that the game was free of charge which was a nice touch by the home side. There was quite a decent crowd here, around 50 folk I’d say and the park itself was looking very clean and smart, with a small newish built enclosure being the only structure for covering. The rest of the ground was grass banking and surrounded by a fence.
The game started and at first I wasn’t sure who was who. One team were wearing purple and the other were wearing white with a black and tangerine vertical stripe. I presumed the purple were fraserburgh in their away strip but I was wrong, the purple belonged to Cruden Bay. This all purple kit was actually really nice but could do with a bit more invention. The home side are from North Juniors division 1 east league and would be looking to give their Highland league neighbours a good fight as both prepare for their seasons ahead. The home team almost took the lead within 5 minutes when the attacker found himself 1 on 1 with the keeper, rounded him and slipped it to his team mate, whose shot was then saved by a Fraserburgh defender who had sprinted back to the goal line. Throughout the first half most of the entertainment came from the Broch manager Kris Hunter, who was continuously shouting at his players with more criticism than compliments. Hunter was also giving the ref a lot of stick too, branding him “a joke”. The Broch took the lead when their attacker latched on to a looping ball and lifted it over the on coming keeper. They doubled their lead not long after when a cross was caught by the keeper, but the momentum of his defender and Broch attacker made the keeper drop the ball to the feet of the forward, and he was never going to miss from 2 yards. This led to a bit of an argument between the keeper and his centre midfielder who shouted “At least catch something!” The half slowly went on until Cruden Bay eventually pulled 1 back with what was perhaps the best worked goal of the game. Their Centre midfielder drove forward and slipped a through ball through the Broch defence for his team mate to drive 1 on 1 with the keeper. This time he repeated the opening attack by rounding the keeper but scored this time for 1-2. Kris Hunter was clearly furious with his defence who had opted to play the offside line despite having no linesmen here.
The ref blew his whistle for half time and Hunter took his team to the far away goal mouth. It’s very strange for a manager to do this, especially in a friendly but some of the words coming out his mouth were unbelievable. I managed to catch one of his quotes “I might as well give up and let you all do what you want as you’re all too good footballers. Russell you can’t play the offside trap when there’s no linesman, you just stopped and did nothing.” Nothing could be heard from Hunter that was positive, and the fans around me were all in disbelief but found the funny side of it. 
Very little happened throughout the second half with few chances there and there, but nothing of real talking points. The most entertaining thing to happen in this half was when a small dog took to the field and raced with the Fraserburgh attackers as they made a counter attack, with a little old woman on the sideline screaming for her pup to return to his lead. Again, this was all taken in good nature by the fans and he eventually was captured and returned to his owner.
