Inside Left highlights the four games in this weekends Scottish fixture card that you need to keep your eye on. This week we feature a tough fixture for both teams at Pittodrie, a bottom-of-the-table clash in Granton, a mid-table affair in the First division and lastly, the pick of the Scottish Cup games taking place this weekend as Clyde take on Livingston.
Posts Tagged: Forres Mechanics
4
Oct 09
Special Edition: Fort William win!
Regular readers of Inside Left will know of our fondness for Highland League outfit Fort William.
Easily, and we mean easily one of the worst sides ever to grace a football field, The Fort have not won a game since September 2007 in a 4-2 win over Rothes on the opening day of the 2006/2007 season. In the intervening times they’ve notched up an 11-0, several 7-0 and 6-0 defeats and even a 10-0 drubbing from Junior side Banks O’Dee in the Cup. Having scored just 3 goals (all away) and conceded 26 in only 7 games played so far, it looked like being another long, long season. Continue reading →
4
Sep 09
2009/10 Scottish Cup First Round draw
This round sees teams from the three leagues underneath the Scottish Third Division (the Highland League, the East of Scotland and the South of Scotland football leagues) begin their Cup run. Although none of these teams will get close to reaching the final, a few of these did make it to the Fourth round last year.
Highland League side Forres Mechanics eased their way past Wigtown & Bladnoch, Keith and Dalbeattie Star, before they finally succumbed 6-1 to Third Division side Forfar.
Another Highland League side made it to the Fourth round. Of all the teams that made it this far, Inverurie Loco Works where rewarded for their progress against Deveronvale, Banks O’ Dee (who earlier knocked out Fort William 10-0) and Vale of Leithen in the previous rounds with a game against SPL side Motherwell. It took five re-scheduled dates before this game finally took place with Motherwell emerging, somewhat unsurprisingly, 3-0 winners.
The final side to make it to the Fourth round where Edinburgh-based Spartans. Their road to their Fourth Round exit was a little more rocky than most. Having dispatched Pollok and Annan Athletic (to which they’d lost their application to join the Third Division), their Third Round fixture against Elgin City was ordered to be replayed after it was discovered that Elgin had fielded an ineligible player, Joe Malin, a loanee from Ross County.
Elgin City where not amused – they won the original game 2-1!
Despite appeals, the game was replayed and this time it was Spartans who emerged as winners. Somewhat ironically, it was later discovered that Spartans had also fielded an ineligible player, Dean Hoskins, in the first game against Elgin City after what Spartans called ‘an administrative error’.
Spartans got their come-uppance in the next round however – they where knocked out by First Division side Airdrie United.
Scottish Cup First Round
Saturday 26 September 2009
Selkirk v Preston Athletic
Clachnacuddin v Wick Academy
Auchinleck Talbot v Fort William
Nairn County v Golspie Sutherland
Edinburgh University v Vale of Leithen
Inverurie Loco Works v St Cuthbert Wanderers
Coldstream v Edinburgh City
Brora Rangers v Irvine Meadow
Buckie Thistle v Forres Mechanics
Whitehill Welfare v Wigtown & Bladnoch
Fraserburgh v Bonnyrigg Rose
Glasgow University v Girvan
Lossiemouth v Newton Stewart
Rothes v Banks O Dee
Civil Service Strollers v Gala Fairydean
Hawick Royal Albert v Huntly
Dalbeattie Star v Keith
14
Jan 09
Football Shorts
Aberdeen inch another three points closer to third spot and what will no doubt be another short European campaign. The win over plucky Kilmarnock at Rugby Park last night involved a memorable come-back from a goal down, both goals (or ‘brace’ to use the correct terminology) coming from Reds top scorer Lee Miller. After Miller received his December Player of The Month Award, Aberdeen gaffer Jimmy Calderwood expressed his fears about losing his on-form striker but now seems resolved to hold on to Miller mainly, we suspect, because no offers have come in for him and because Aberdeen only have Darren Mackie up front to pose any kind of threat in up-ing the ‘GF’ column. Opposite number Jim Jefferies is pretty radge about the defeat but then again, I cant remember him not being radge about anything these days, he is turning into the Victor Meldrew of Scottish Football.
For plucky (or crap, depends on how rose tinted your view of Scottish lower-league football is) Foress Mechanics, their dream of playing European football next season is over. Their slender 6-1 defeat at Station Park last night in the Scottish Cup put an end to their ambitions. For Forfar, future financial fortunes favour the Angus side, for they get to play Rangers, who in turn beat Division One leaders St. Johnstone 2-1 at McDairmid Park. As we highlighted the other day, it was a case of ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’ for The Loons who they faced: both the Saints and the Gers inflicted 6-0 defeats in recent years but who knows, on the day they might get the breaks, the run of the ball, the rub of the green, the luck of the Iri.. Fuck no, they’ll get thumped. Again.
For Rangers, the win was plain sailing, but the game was marred by a bunch of malcontents protesting at the way chairman and knight-of-the-realm David Murray was running the club. Well, we say running, but ‘Massive Clearance Sale’ seems more appropriate in light of recent reports. The on-going Boyd debacle – is he or is he not going to Birmingham - has called into question the financial stability of the club given the credit crunch and all that. While some at the club, notably manager Walter Smith and assistant manager Ally McCoist reckon they don’t need Boyd and will still win the league without him it has to be said that everything that seems to go wrong in Govan brings with it a plethora of ‘Rangers in Crisis’ stories. To wit, remember last year when Rangers got put out by FBK Kaunas? They got over that defeat and the subsequent loss of Carlos Cuellar (who clearly didn’t rate a good CIS Insurance Cup run as highly as a run-out in the Aston Vila first XI) pretty sharpish, buying in a few decent players and generally doing rather well in all competitions. Sure, the furore around the sanity/intergrity/blue-nosedness of David Murray and his cohorts are a distraction best resolved pretty damn quick, but lets take a long-term view here: the money that Boyd’s sale will bring in will ease the clubs debts, and hell, even without Boyd, Rangers will still trounce pretty much everyone anyway (except Celtic possibly). And it’s not as if they’re searching behind the sofa for effective strikers.
Love Street, Paisley is not dead yet! St Mirren yesterday overcame Brechin City (with the chrome-domed Jimmy Duffy in charge) meaning that they’ll play either one of Inverurie Locos or, more likely, Motherwell once that game eventually gets played.
Jesus lads, did ye see the deal Manchester City are putting together for Kaka? A bid of around 100m euros, with a weekly wage of £500,000! Can you imagine how many players Murray would have to sell if they put in an offer like that? Speaking of transfers, it’s been a pretty unspectacular transfer window so far in Scotland. We’re about halfway through this particular window, and what has happened so far? Lets see …
Steven Pressley, who must be nearly 70 by now has joined Falkirk, where he’s joins up with other senior citizens like Jackie McNamara and Lee Bullen. Richie Byrne, who up until a few seasons ago was to be found at the back with Aberdeen has gone to Inverness together with Filipe Morais who joins from Hibs. Talk about being sent into the wilderness, but then again, Morais does hang around casinos and kick seven shades out of doormen
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