Buckie Thistle

Buckie is a fishing town of seven thousand souls on the Moray Firth coast in the north of Scotland, and it has a Celtic in miniature. Buckie Thistle were born in 1889, on a date history never quite recorded, and wear green and white hoops that legend says arrived in a donation of Celtic shirts, with the delicious detail that the Glasgow club only adopted their famous hoops in 1903. The Jags joined the Highland League in 1909 as the first Banffshire club in the competition and have played at Victoria Park since 1919. With eleven league titles, they guard two unique glories: in 1954 they became the only non league club ever to win a competitive match at Hampden Park, beating Queen's Park 2-1 at the national stadium, and in 1989 they hosted Celtic themselves to celebrate their centenary. In 2024 the story came full circle, with the Jags drawn to Celtic Park in the Scottish Cup, the miniature club at the stadium of the giant that gave them their colours. Highland football in a nutshell: small on the map, enormous in history.