Formartine United captain Stuart Anderson hopes the Highland League season won’t be further delayed.
The Pitmedden men were in action in the Highland League Cup on Saturday, losing 2-1 to Rothes after extra-time in the semi-final at North Lodge Park.
Following their defeat United, along with the rest of the league apart from League Cup finalists Buckie Thistle and Rothes, will now have to wait until November 28 at the earliest for their next competitive action.
The decision was taken to delay the start of the 2020-21 campaign in the hope that fans would be allowed into grounds.
However, that prospect still looks to be some way off and the new term could yet be delayed further.
Formartine skipper Anderson, pictured, hopes that isn’t the case.
He said: “As players we’ll keep ourselves ticking over when it comes to fitness and hopefully we’ll get the league going soon, but we’ll need to wait and see what happens with that.
“I would prefer to see the league start whatever the circumstances. I understand finances come into it and it could be a problem for clubs if there were no fans.
“I think we could social distance within grounds and I know a lot of people have said that already.
“It’s up to the government to decide on, but when you see things happening indoors, I think there was a show in a theatre in London with 3,000 there, yet not being able to get 200 people into a Highland League game is quite strange.”
It’s as a result of the current times that Formartine and Rothes’s first competitive game in seven months was a semi-final.
Some may cite the lack of competitive action as a reason for defeat, but not Anderson.
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The United midfielder added: “That (the lack of recent competitive games) didn’t have an impact at all. We’ve played plenty of friendlies and we were definitely up to speed.
“We just weren’t good enough on the day and that showed in the result. We’re not looking for any excuses, it was the same for both sides. We weren’t good enough and that’s it.
“It’s never nice to lose a semi-final. We had chances to put the game to bed and we never took them.
“Rothes are a decent side and they turned us over. They took us to extra time and then scored what was a bad goal from our point of view.”
Meanwhile, Huntly midfielder Bradley Manson has signed a new deal to remain at Christie Park until the summer of 2024.
Manson, 22, came into the Highland League in 2015 with Deveronvale before moving to Keith in March 2017, where he played under new Huntly boss Allan Hale. He has made 45 appearances at Huntly since his debut in February 2019.
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