SPFL Tier 3, New Central Park, 05/04/25.

Or maybe I should go….

Selection bingo obviously works.

We controlled this from the beginning even if I was nervous every time they moved up the park before we scored but at times it looked a bit like an old-fashioned end of season game.

Then Joel Mumbongo scored with a header from a Kalvin Orsi cross. A collector’s piece.

Then Kalvin got the ball on the wing, skinned his man and proceded to waltz past three of their defenders before striking his shot from about the D.

The next was a peach. Their keeper had just hit the ball aimlessly out for a throw-in, which was taken – to Carlo Pignatiello. Carlo moved infield and curled a Froxyesque curler into the top corner.

There was one strange moment when the ball looped up in our box and keeper Shay Kelly was in two minds about how to deal with it. He kept it out somewhat awkwardly.

Mouhamed Niang and Joel Mumbongo had picked up bookings in the first half and at three-nil up it made sense to remove Niang for the second half as being more likely to pick up another. Craig McGuffie was the replacement with Michael Ruth on for Orsi at the same time.

A telling sub as within five minutes a Kelty defender didn’t get his header in and Ruth was able to run in from just past halfway before slotting it past the keeper and inside the post.

Just after Joel Mumbongo went down after a challenge in the box and had to be stretchered off the pitch.

However, things went from bad to worse for Kelty when one of their players got a second yellow card for a trip.

A few minutes later Matt Shiels – on for Tony Wallace – nudged a Ruth free-kick past the keeper.

I just about missed our sixth. A cross looked to be Michael Ruth’s to head in but he was shoved in the box. I looked at the ref expecting him to blow but instead Craig McGuffie put the ball in the net.

By this time we were full of flicks and backheels and generally playing exhibition stuff.

Football is really bizarre. Where did this display come from? I know Kelty were poor but we were more than good enough to take advantage.

The lads obviously took confidence from winning last week. They should take even more from this.

SPFL Tier 3, Recreation Park, 29/3/25.

A win!

Our first since December. And we lost the first goal. I think the last time we came from behind to win was at Arbroath in October.

They missed a penalty to make it 2-0 though. That would most likely have been game over.

For us Michael Ruth scored with a penalty and then Craig McGuffie embarrassed the keeper with a free-kick which it seems the wind took and he could only palm it into the net.

Then they equalised and that could have been it – or worse – but Mark Durnan popped up with a header from a corner to score the winner.

Strange how a win brightens the mood even if we’re going down.

SPFL Tier 3, Gayfield,* 15/3/25.

Someone once said, “It’s a funny old game.” Someone else said, “Football. Bloody Hell.”

Despite our position at the bottom of the table and theirs at the top I had a curious feeling of optimism during the warm-up. Or maybe it was the sunshine bathing Gayfield. Hints of Spring and all that.

There was more selection bingo from boss Stevie Farrell. Quite how Finlay Gray was supposed to affect the game from what was in effect the left wing position is beyond me. He did his best but he’s not a left-footed player and his crossing therefore wasn’t a threat.

The optimism didn’t last long. We had dominated the early stages and then in what was their first really concerted attack they scored, a completely uncontested header from a cross you could see coming long before it did. To make it worse it was ex-Son Sam Stanton who scored it. (Mind you there was another Arbroath player waiting behind him if he hadn’t headed it.) Another long day beckoned.

Thereafter the first half was something of a bore: two poor teams misplacing passes or miscontrolling the ball and it had the general feel of an old-style end-of-season game. Mouhamed Niang was impressive, though, imposing himself on the midfield, which continued throughout the game.

The second half was more of the same really but we began to come into it more as the game progressed and we looked more confident since they hadn’t added to their lead.

But down 1-0 and two subs come on so that we switch to a back three and what had looked like a reasonably solid defence restricting Arbroath pretty well to shots from outside the box suddenly became shambolic – almost as if we had never practiced that formation. I could only see one outcome from that. And it wasn’t favourable.

Then we scored. Don’t you just love football?

Niang won the ball in midfield, fed sub Craig McGuffie, who sent a delightful defence splitting pass through to Michael Ruth, who still had a lot to do though, beating a defender before slotting it past the keeper.

So the day ended on a high. There’s still a football side in there somewhere.

*Greenversity Stadium at Gayfield, if you must.

Scottish Cup*, Round Four, The Rock, 18/1/25.

Well; a hammering was not what we needed from this.

A win and the sponsor money for reaching the next round and the possibility of an away draw against a big team to also help the coffers was required.

Only Craig McGuffie’s goal right at the death spared us a whitewash.

The rest of the season is going to be brutal experience. (Unless the manager throws caution to the wind, which isn’t his MO.)

*Scottish Gas Scottish Cup

SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 31/8/24.

Well. Here we are again.

Yet another draw.

And yet again coming from behind. Twice this time.

We were the better looking side in the early exchanges. Indeed Kelty really didn’t have an attack worthy of the name until they scored, a quick break showing an alarming fragility in our back line, waltzed through as if it were not there.

They looked extremely confident on the ball after that with a great awareness of where their teammates were and making seemingly blind passes. They were also very well organised defensively, always able to get a man in to make the crucial tackle or block. And if that failed their goalkeeper managed to make the save.

Not until the 43rd minute, after a few corners from the left had produced nothing, one from the right found Mark Durnan able to head in at the far post.

The second half followed a similar pattern. They scored when we lost the ball in midfield and worked the ball well into the area where the free guy stuck it through Brett Long’s legs.

It looked like the unbeaten run would end but then another Craig McGuffie corner was again headed in by Mark Durnan. That could almost have been a response to the immediately prior announcement of Durnan as man of the match. Personally I thought he was uncomfortable on the left of the centre back pairing.

Still, a draw against the team at the top of the league can’t be bad.

So it’s five league draws in a row now to start off the campaign (albeit with a Challenge Cup win against Berwick mixed in.) That sequence surely must be a club record.

But draws don’t get you up the league table. Not in these days of three points for a win. We really need to get one of those on the board.

There’s a break next week for the next round of the Challenge Cup, a long trip to Peterhead, before we’re down at Annan in a fortnight.

Scottish Challenge Cup,* The Rock, 13/8/24.

This is a competition in which our record is truly dire. The worst of any club to play in it, in fact.

We do sometimes win our first tie but usually not our second. (The only time we did do so we went on to the final. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.)

Nevertheless, a 4-0 win (all goals in the first half, Craig McGuffie with two, Michael Ruth and David Wilson the others) is not to be sneezed at. Even if our opponents are two levels below us they have still had an impressive start to their season.

There are harder tests to come though.

*Call it the SPFL Trust Trophy if you must.