Lossiemouth are set to be without James Leslie after this weekend until the festive period as he heads to Japan for work.
The Fochabers-based electrician and Coasters centre-back works for Grants of Dufftown and is heading for Hokkaido, Japan’s most northerly island, next week to help assemble a new distillery.
After Lossie’s R Davidson (Banchory) Highland League Cup first round tie with Deveronvale on Saturday Leslie will be away for the following five weekends.
The 23-year-old said: “On Monday I’m off to Japan to help build a new distillery.
“It’s a good opportunity to go over. I was actually offered three trips and I wanted to do at least one.
“It’s disappointing to be missing some football, but at the same time it’s a really good opportunity.
“When I’ve said to people about it they’ve said ‘are there no electricians in Japan?’
“The company has built quite a few distilleries in Japan and also in places like Thailand and Jamaica. It’s something we specialise in and it’s good to be going over.
“I’ve been to Japan twice before in 2020 before Covid and in 2022, but they were just three-week trips and were smaller jobs. This is on a much larger scale.”
Leslie will be keeping an eye on Lossie
Although he’ll be hard at work in the Far East in the coming weeks, Leslie is already planning to try to keep himself sharp for a return to football and revealed colleagues who are already in Japan have been playing five-a-side.
He added: “I’ll miss a few games so it isn’t ideal from a football perspective, but hopefully the team do well.
“Japan’s nine hours ahead so I’ll be waking up in the middle of the night checking the score or checking before work in the morning to see how the boys have got on.
“Pipe fitters from my work are already out in Japan and they’ve been playing five-a-side football twice a week.
“It’s 12 hour shifts every day over there, but I’ll be taking my running shoes and I’ll be trying to play some five-a-sides as well when I’m there to keep myself ticking over.
“We’ll be working from 7am to 7pm but I’ll do my best to keep myself fit and sharp.”
Coasters can pick up
Lossiemouth are winless in their last six matches in all competitions and are still without a permanent manager following the departure of Eddie Wolecki Black in August.
The Coasters are 16th in the table just two points above bottom of the table Strathspey Thistle.
However, Leslie believes Lossie are capable of improving their position.
He said: “We’re needing a couple of good results to get us going again and hopefully we can get that.
“We played well against Buckie on Saturday but didn’t get anything out of the game (2-1 loss), but hopefully we can get a couple of wins to kickstart us again.
“We’ve got a good squad and I don’t think we should be where we are at the moment.
“It’s felt like every mistake we’ve made recently has been getting punished.”
Gunn on Australian adventure
Wick Academy’s Ross Gunn has moved to Australia and it remains to be seen whether he will stay Down Under long term.
The midfielder featured in the Scorries’ weekend Breedon Highland League loss against Nairn County, but has now jetted out to Melbourne to sample life in Australia.
Wick boss Gary Manson revealed Gunn, 23, has been considering making the move for a while, but may yet return to Harmsworth Park.
Manson said: “Ross has thought about moving to Australia before to possibly play football over there. He’s decided to go over just now for a couple of months to see how he finds it.
“Ross being away will leave a big hole in our team that we’ll need to try to fill.
“He’s been excellent since he joined and won our player of the year award last season which says it all.
“We’ll have to cope without him and this is now a chance for someone else to step up and try to claim a starting spot.
“When Ross was thinking about what to do and he asked me about it I told him it could potentially be a life-changing move for him.
“If he ends up wanting to start a new life over there then fair play to him.
“I hope Ross enjoys his time over there and if he comes back then we’ll be happy to have him back because he’s still signed to ourselves.”
Macadie makes his return
Meanwhile, Wick have welcomed back winger Mark Macadie following a troublesome knee injury.
The 21-year-old has been on loan at North Caledonian League outfit Halkirk United and made his Academy comeback as a sub against Nairn at the weekend.
Manson added: “Mark’s still got a lot to offer and it’s a shame he’s been out for a while.
“Mark is someone that can hurt teams and is a real handful with his pace and power so he’ll be like a new signing for us.”
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