Macrae away but Forres Mechanics keep on winning
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THERE'S life after Andy Macrae, as Forres Mechanics proved on Saturday by keeping their winning run going.
The Cans went to Huntly and won 4-1 little more than a day after news of Macrae's transfer to Brora Rangers was broken.
Forres manager Charlie Rowley told the Gazette how his star player’s switch of clubs came about, and how the club is determined to move on and strengthen their league position this term.
"About three or four weeks ago Brora got in touch with me and were told we were not interested in selling Andy for obvious reasons," Rowley revealed.
"It was more or less left at that, but Andy somehow got to learn about their enquiry, although not from anybody at our club.
"Once he got to find out about it, we had a conversation and he intimated that it was highly unlikely he was going to be signing an extension to his current contract with us and he would like the opportunity to speak to them.
"We let him and he came back and said that he felt Brora could offer him something that we couldn't at the minute, which was the chance to push on and fight for silverware on a regular basis.
"He was honest and we respected his decision so it was just a matter of coming to an agreement with Brora, which took at least another couple of weeks.
"We felt their original offer was way off what we felt Andy was worth given that he's been Highland League young player of the year two years in a row and arguably if not the best in the Highland League at the minute, certainly up there, so it took a fair bit of conversation, but we got there in the end.
"It's a good deal for us from a financial perspective, but on the pitch it is not going to help our cause.
"It gives an opportunity for other guys in the squad and there's absolutely no guarantee that we will be worse off for it, or that Andy will be better at Brora than he was with us, so there's all those things to be taken into consideration.
"But there's a line drawn under it now. We move on and I think that was shown by the players on Saturday.
"There was no hangover from the Andy MacRae transfer at Huntly, that's for sure."
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