Watt urges Dee to seize chance to lift Evening Express Aberdeenshire Cup tonight

Jamie Watt has urged Banks o’ Dee to grasp their chance to make Evening Express Aberdeenshire Cup history.

The Junior Superleague champions take on Cove Rangers tonight at Harlaw Park in the final of the Shire Cup.

The trophy was first played for in 1887 and has never been won by a Junior side.

Although Aberdeen University did lift the cup in 1920/21, they were not a Junior side at the time.

Dee co-manager Watt, who’s in charge at Spain Park along with Tommy Forbes, wants to see his side embrace their opportunity to make history.

He said: “History is there for us, we want to grasp that.

“We’re a Junior team and you’d expect us to be just competing in the first and second rounds and then going out.

“But we’ve built something special here and we know that, we keep asking them to perform in the games with Highland League teams and the boys keep turning up.

“History is definitely there and it puts the club on the map as well, so fingers crossed we can get the result.

“I’ve been emphasising to the boys that it would be huge for the club if we could win this cup.

“Just getting to the final is massive. I played Highland League for a long time and this is a hard final to get to.

“So to go that next step and win the cup would be huge.

“It would be a big reward for Brian Winton, the president, and the committee because the people behind the scenes do a lot and it’s them who get the reward.

“Me and Tommy Forbes have a good team and they know they are a good team – but to go that extra step and beat Cove to win the cup would be fantastic.”

Watt has stepped into management this season alongside Forbes after Sandy McNaughton stepped down at the end of last season.

Watt says it would be a dream to win his first trophy in management tonight.

He added: “I’m a born winner, I love winning and hate losing.

“As a manager it’s completely different standing on the sidelines.

“But I’ve enjoyed management so far, everything has been great.

“If this was to be the first trophy on the board it would be a dream in a cup of this magnitude.”

On their road to the final Dee have beaten Inverurie Locos, Aberdeen Reserves and Turriff United. Watt says they will have taken confidence from those results, but doesn’t expect it to be easy against Cove.

He said: “We do take confidence from the results we’ve had in the cup this year and in the last two seasons in the Shield.

“Apart from the finals where we lost we’ve had good results against pretty much everyone.

“Cove’s the only team that we haven’t really beaten and we only played them in last season’s Shield final.

“But we’ll go into this final confident, looking for a good performance and we’ll see what happens.

“We know they’re dominating the Highland League – they are the best team in the Highland League and they’ll want to stop our run in the cup.”