Huntly Football Club make Highland League climb after wins over Wick Academy and Strathspey Thistle to achieve manager Allan Hale's targets
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BACK-to-back wins have propelled Huntly to the lofty heights of seventh place, and landed two of manager Allan Hale’s targets for the season.
Saturday’s 1-0 win at Wick Academy, preceded by a 4-1 success over bottom club Strathspey Thistle last Wednesday, took the Black and Golds above several teams into the top seven.
With Huntly just three points behind Inverurie Locos with three games to go, it isn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that they could even break into the top six with a strong finish to the campaign.
Hale had called for his men before last week’s double header to pick up a win which would take them beyond last season’s points total.
And he knew another positive result in Caithness on Saturday would break the 40 points mark for the campaign.
Huntly complete their fixture schedule with three more away trips to Keith on Saturday, Brora a week later and Rothes on Wednesday, April 15 in the last game of the season.
Hale was satisfied by Saturday’s single goal success at Harmsworth Park, earned by Michael Clark’s 57th minute winner.
“We expected a hard-fought game – I didn’t expect anything less,” he said.
“Coming up here is always difficult, especially after a long journey to Strathspey on Wednesday. There’s a lot of fatigue in the team, just with the travel alone.
“Wick are a good team, they’ve got a lot of good players, so we’re delighted with the three points.
“We didn’t play at our best, by any stretch of the imagination, but we found a way to win. Six points in a tough week, you’ll take that.”
Saturday’s result completed a league double for the Black and Golds against Academy this season. Huntly won 5-2 at Christie Park in December.
“They gave us a really tough game at Christie Park earlier in the season and we never read too much into how people’s results are,” Hale said. “We always respect the opposition and we certainly gave Wick our full respect today.
“It was going to take something special to win the game and it was a great header from Michael Clark. The Wick goalkeeper pulled off a couple of saves, but that was one that he had no chance of stopping.
“We had a really poor start to the season but we’ve been pretty consistent since the turn of the year.”
Huntly did go behind at Strathspey last Wednesday before two Michael Dangana penalty kicks, and further goals by Brodie Allen and sub Robbie Foster turned the game around in the visitors’ favour.
