Peterhead has been an ever-present in the life of Danny Strachan and he wants to do all he can to lift them out of the mire.
Strachan is a local boy and used to attend games at Balmoor as a child, before embarking on his own football career.
He started off in the youth teams at Aberdeen before moving on to Dundee, which has been a popular loan market for Peterhead under Jim McInally.
Full-back Strachan, along with team-mates Lyall Cameron and Josh Mulligan, joined the Blue Toon on loan during the abridged 2020-21 season, before they all returned for second spells in the last campaign.
Whereas Cameron and Mulligan have gone back to Dundee and forged first-team spots for themselves, Strachan was let go by the Dark Blues in the summer.
McInally was quick to offer him a permanent route back home and while results have not gone to plan so far, Strachan wants to get Peterhead out of a tight spot.
“I’ve probably followed the club since I was five years old,” said Strachan. “I used to get a season ticket and go to all the games, until I had games of my own on a Saturday. That’s the only time I used to miss the games.
“I used to go with my mum and dad and sometimes my sister would come along as well. I just remember going along from a young age every Saturday.
“Last year didn’t go completely plan – I would have liked to have played more but it was a strong team when I came back. I had to wait my time.
“This year I’ve been able to play a lot more, which I’ve enjoyed. We just need to start putting in the performances and getting results.
“I felt this season I could kick on, get in the team and have a good season, so it wasn’t too difficult a decision to come back.
“We ended last season really strongly, after a going through a spell where it wasn’t looking too good. That just shows quickly it can change and if we get a couple of wins under our belt, we know how quickly it can change this year.”
Strachan has started working for the club too, delivering training sessions in local schools with the club’s community department.
“This is only the second week of it but it’s going well so far,” he added. “I wasn’t too sure about going into coaching but I’d always help out, so I might keep going down that route.
“When the people at the club did the community camps in the summer I was helping out with that stuff, so it went from there.”
Peterhead are under pressure now to start picking up results, with just one win from their first 14 games.
They face Airdrieonians this Saturday and Strachan appreciates the team can no longer bide their time, given they are already 10 points adrift of eighth spot in League One.
“With the strength of the league this year you’ve hardly got an easy game,” added Strachan. “The way they started the season, they were flying then after a few weeks they were down into eighth.
“It’s a difficult place to go but this month doesn’t get any easier for us. We’ve got to stick together and try get some points out of it.
“We’ve got to pick up points in these sorts of games – we can’t be looking at it as a free-hit anymore.
“We’ve got Dunfermline the following week and they’re flying at the moment. We managed to get a draw against them last time so hopefully we can get a result again.”