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Date: 9th October 2026
Fairies Do Exist
By Donald C Stewart
They may not be at the bottom of the garden, however they are certainly winging their way across Scottish football and the lower leagues as Fairy Godfathers have provided two clubs in Scotland with sponsorship that is likely to save one and provide the other with a great deal of security over their future.
As for the first, it’s to do with an author having put them into a book whilst the second, has seen family links provide his hometown stadium named after a rising 50-cap international Scottish superstar has had a stand named in their honour for the next five years.
If we start with Buckie Thistle, horror writer Stephen King has made a fantastic donation to their fundraising campaign aimed at securing the future of the club. Six years ago, the Highland League Club featured in the Stephen King novel “If It Bleeds.” Two copies of the novel were dispatched over to Moray and auctioned off to help club coffers. Now Buckie Thistle interim president Daniel Farquhar has told BBC Scotland that they reached out to Stephen, and he has sent “a nice little figure” to keep them going. Buckie Thistle was struggling to make ends meet and he hoped his donation would spur on others to give money to the club.
What I found quite surprising was talk of operating costs of around £20,000 per month, meaning that this is a £¼ million pounds per annum operation down in the fifth level of Scottish football’s pyramid. People who might not have heard before of Buckie Thistle might remember a little bit of a splash when they played Celtic in the Scottish Cup a couple of years ago. They have been fighting up the top end of the Highland League trying to get into the SPFL over the last few seasons.
As for Ardrossan Winton Rovers, Billy Gilmour played some of his early football there and he has family connections with the club, including his father and uncle who played for the club whilst his brother Harvey is both a player and a coach there.
He has signed a five-year sponsorship deal making sure that Ardrossan Winton Rovers are going to get the benefit of his largesse. In response, the club have named a stand after him and you can go and sit in the Billy Gilmour Stand to watch Ardrossan Winton Rovers in the seventh tier of Scottish football.
I wonder who your fairy godfather would be if you were looking for one. It must have been something Hamilton Accies have had to contemplate over the last few seasons.
Whilst Greenock Morton had their own version in the late Douglas Rae, they have more of a hope of the Ian Murray successor possessing a magic wand. Rae’s bankrolling of the club, after his death came to a halt, much like Brookes Mileson at Gretna or the Thompson family at Dundee united.
It brings into question how long Roy MacGregor can be Ross County’s fairy godfather.
My own club Ayr United in the past has benefited from the Cameron family (don’t tell some of the fanbase) and now David Smith is putting his hands in his own pockets to keep the club going. I remember Lachlan Cameron talking about how much annually he was putting into the club and rather than it being cash he was earning it was eating away at his family’s cushions.
When he went back over to the States it was only a matter of time before he sold on his legacy within Ayr United to somebody who had the ability to take it over – David Smith has more than managed that.
Of course, a more stable model is to turn the club over to fans and you see the benefits of that for both Motherwell and Heart of Midlothian.
You cannot doubt that Hearts have recovered thanks to Anne Budge, but her decision to put it into community ownership due to lessons of the Romanov era was critical to their future. And if anybody hasn’t listened to the fantastic BBC audio series that is fronted by Martin Geissler about the Romanov era, get your ears tuned into that, because if instability was a byword, then Romanov captured it as his trademark.
So as Buckie Thistle and Ardrossan Winton Rovers settle into having their fairy godfather put their hands in their pockets, wouldn’t it be nice if Morton could find a new fairy godfather to help them out…
Then again, community ownership, principals…
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Tags: Ayr United, Buckie Thistle, fans blogs, oor Donald, Scottish football