KANE Winton admits he’s proud to have become the first Banks o’ Dee captain to lift the GPH Builders Merchants Highland League Cup.

The 28-year-old was at his inspirational best as we battled to a 1-0 victory over Inverurie Locos in the final at Fraserburgh’s Bellslea Park.

Kane said: “I was careful not to ‘big up’ the game beforehand, made sure there wasn’t too much talk about how important it would be to me if we could win the cup.

“But it’s hard to describe the pride I felt when I walked up to actually lift the trophy.

“Doing it for Dee at the first attempt, to cap what has been a very tough season, is an unbelievable achievement.

“It’s a testament to the determination of the players and everyone around the club and a reward for the effort all of us have put in to ensure we have good reason to be pleased with how we have competed in our first season at this level.

“We are with a club that has been steeped in success for decades and want to continue that, no matter level we are playing at.

“Winning what us seen as the biggest cup competition in the Highland League gives us a stepping stone towards hopefully establishing ourselves as one of the top sides in the seasons ahead.

“The players know efforts are already being made to make our squad even stronger so that we are ready to go again next season.

“The good thing about this win is we showed we can come out on top in a big game when we aren’t at our very best.

“When playing at Spain Park, we like to get the ball down and play a passing game because the surface there allows us to do that.

“We have been criticised on occasion for not being able to do that on pitches that aren’t of the same high standard as our one, that we maybe lacked the ability to defend properly at those sort of places, that we were unable to grind out results when we needed to.

“Well we showed this time that we can win ugly, that we can scrap and battle when asked to and get the result that we wanted.

“It wasn’t pretty, but I really don’t care.

“I would take ugly cup win over a pretty defeat in a final any day.

“It’s also fair to say we delivered the only bit of real quality in the 90 minutes to win the game.

“The management team spoke during the half-time interval about how important it was to just keep working hard and wait for the one moment of magic we needed to come along.

“That’s what we did and Magnus Watson rewarded everyone’s efforts by scoring an unbelievable goal, it was just brilliant.

“It was a real touch of class from him and gave us the win I feel we deserved.”