Aye aye all, and fit like theday? It’s Monday, which means it’s Performance of the Week time. This week we have thee nominations for you to choose from. You know the deal – we like to recognize those teams, players and events in the week just passed that deserve a special mention for services rendered in the name of Scottish football. So without further waffling, here are the nominations, each one lovingly hand-picked by the staff of Inside Left.
There’s three teams we’ve been watching over the last few weeks as they slowly seemed to spiral down the league table, seemingly out of control and doomed to another mediocre season. Those same three teams seem to have hit a rich vein of form of late to turn that around and head back up the table. Aberdeen finally won a game, their first in six attempts that takes them off the foot of the table. Ross County have now won three-in-a-row (four if you include the win over Morton that took them to the Alba Challenge Cup Final), a run of wins that has seen the Dingwall side off the bottom of the table and into 6th place. But it’s the third of those teams that we want to nominate for a performance of the week:
St. Johnstone went through a period between their 2-2 draw with Morton at the start of August to the their defeat against Clyde at the end of August without winning a single game, a period which included heavy defeats to Dunfermline and Partick Thistle, as well as elimination from the League Cup at the hands of Livingston. The defeats saw the Saints slump to 9th (second bottom) of the table after game week 5. A two week respite followed while the national side did it’s thing, and the break seemed to revitalize Derek McInnes’ side: the first game in September, against Ross County, the Saints recorded their first win since the 5th August and, since then, they’ve not lost a game. 13 points from five games (Ross County, Dundee, Airdrie, Livingston and a draw against Queen of the South) have put the Perth side back into fourth place and amongst the running for the promotion places.
Stenhousemuir have been cruising their way to the top of the Third division. Though not exactly high scorers, the Warriors had not lost a game all season, so going into the game against Elgin City, a team against they beat 3-0 in the opening day of the season, you’d imagine that they might have been feeling confident. After all, Elgin City, rooted to the bottom of the table and thus officially Scotland’s worst senior side, have had a dreadfull start to their season. The former Highland League side had not won a home game all season, though they did get three points away at Forfar. But two particularly heavy defeats, a 6-1 to Albion and a 5-2 at East Stirling must have made manager Robbie Williamson and his assistant, former Aberdeen, Hull City and Ross County player Kenny Gilbert slighty nervous. Certainly, going into half time 2-1 down, few expected Elgin City to make much of the remaining 45 minutes. But as we know, football is a funny old game. When Paul Kaczan scored City’s fourth goal, precisely 45 minutes after the restart, the 300-odd Elgin City fans at Borough Briggs must have been over the moon. Earlier, they’d seen top scorer Darren Shallicker and Guy Kerr put the ball into the net. The three points where warmly welcomed and though the defeat still has them bottom of the table, the win might boost them as they travel to Cowdenbeath next week.
So, for causing coming back from behind twice, causing an upset and for keeping the magic of football alive, another worthy nominee for Performance of the Week: Elgin City.
And so onto our last nominee. Pop quiz: what do Paraguayan international and former Vélez Sársfield, Peñarol and Real Zaragoza player José Luis Chilavert, São Paulo player Rogério Ceni and Lossiemouths’s Darren McConnachie all have in common? Well, they’re all goalkeepers but for an extra point – they’re also goalscoring goalkeepers.
Yes, Lossiemouth goalkeeper Darren McConnachie scored his second goal in three games as the Coasters overturned a half time deficit to take a point from the Moray derby against Forres Mechanics. Lossie levelled in dramatic fashion with goalkeeper McConnachie rising to bullet home an injury time header to add to his 80-yard strike against Fraserburgh last month. In that game, with a strong wind behind his back, McConnachie punted the ball up the park and caught his opposite number Paul Leask 20 yards off his line. The Broch keeper could only look on helplessly as the ball sailed over his head and into the empty net. McConnachie joins fellow Highland league goalies duo John Gardiner and Ross Bremner (who both scored while playing in goal for Huntly), as well as former Lossiemouth keeper Stevie Dunn and former Forres keeper Robbie Taylor on the scoring goalies list.
Right, thats the nominations for this week. If you have any of your own to add, leave a comment below. Until next week, cheerie-bye.
It has probably gone unnoticed to many, but there is a team in Scottish football that has put together a run of results that has seen them go unbeaten since the end of September across all competitions.
It’s Monday morning, which means it is Performance of the Week time. This week, we have a bit of a first, in that all our nominations come from the lower leagues. That’s not to say that the SPL didn’t have any noteworthy performances. Take Hibernian for example, who eased past a very poor Motherwell side, ending a run of six games without winning. Hamilton Accies where within seconds of getting a nomination for this weeks ‘Performance of the Week’, had it not been for Brian Easton’s own goal right at the death of the match which earned opponents Dundee United a valuable point. Or how’s about Ross County, who took revenge on Airdrie United for that Alba Cup final defeat the other week – they won 2-0. A week too late, but never mind.