SPFL Tier 3, Stark’s Park, 23/3/19.

We just weren’t at it for this game.

Mind you, the line up was odd with Carsy playing at centre back and Michael Paton in midfield. Neither Ross Perry nor Brian McLean could have been available at centre half despite no mention on the club website of them having problems.

We had a fair bit of possession in the first few minutes without making anything of it. Then the doors fell off. A quick movement up our right led to a good first time strike hitting the back of our net. But we had been carved open far too easily.

They began to look faster and sharper than us, getting to second balls quicker.

Their second followed a misjudgement by Craig Barr who failed to cut out a through ball. David Ferguson’s last ditch challenge only fed the ball to the scorer.

Grant Adam had no chance with either shot. His kicking had started off OK but soon started to become atrocious. It’s a liability.

Hope blossomed when a great ball inside the full back allowed Bobby Barr to the bye-line and his cut-back was netted by Calum Gallagher.

If we’d held out to half-time we might perhaps have made a game of it but Grant Adam came out for a ball he’d no hope of ever getting, letting ex-Son Kevin Nisbet head into an empty net. Last effort of the half. That was game over.

I wondered at the restart if our goal would survive more than the ten minutes it had in the first. It didn’t. Nine minutes in they got past the defence too easily again. Grant Adam parried the shot – but only to Nisbet’s head. Game really over.

We looked utterly disjointed, loads of hoofed balls to nowhere, misplaced passes galore, Dom Thomas reverting to ‘hit it at the earliest opportunity’ even when playing a pass was the much better option. Even so I was surprised when he was hooked off in favour of Iain Russell but Beany almost scored with his first touch, the ball crashing off the bar. It looked easier to score. That’s the sort of day we had.

Four of the teams around or below us picked up points as well. We could be back in eighth place on Tuesday when Stranraer play Brechin.

This looks like going down to the wire.

SPFL Tier 3, Stark’s Park, 15/12/18

For forty five minutes of this we were impressive, knocking the ball about well and with Dom Thomas shooting on sight. (Mostly wildly it has to be said.) Despite that we looked a little shaky at the back – not surprising given that Stuart Carswell isn’t a centre back but was slotted in there due to necessity.

It wasn’t Thomas but Ross Forbes who scored a worldy though. He picked up a loose Raith pass about ten yards inside their half, looked up and lobbed the keeper right into the top corner.

Unfortunately we didn’t keep the lead for long. But the goal should not have stood as it came in a passage of play following a Raith throw-in which was a foul throw (a persistent occurence during this game. Why refs and linesmen don’t punish these I don’t know.)

But we got ourselves ahead again when Bobby Barr released Cammy Ballantyne to whip a vicious cross across the face of the goal which Michael Paton (apparently; It was up the far end and diificult to identify) only had to touch to score but made sure hit the back of the net.

Half-time and I was of course worried we would not hold out but it wasn’t till after the hour mark we conceded again. Too easily, with former Son Kevin Nisbet on the mark.

Their third was perhaps coming as we had faded a bit but we could have got ours if Dom Thomas’s free-kick hadn’t been too near the keeper. It was an acrobatic effort back across the goal from a cross hit long.

The fourth was a severe disappointment as the performance up to then hadn’t deserved it but resistance just melted away from him for another former Son Lewis Vaughan to put even a draw beyond us.

The first half presented grounds for optimism for the rest of the season. The second half didn’t.

(aet 0-2.)

SPFL Tier 2 Play-off Final, Second Leg, The Rock, 13/5/18.

Well; we all knew that the good times wouldn’t last forever.

Yet for 93 minutes of this we were still a Tier 2 team.

Then all of a sudden no longer. That it was such a scruffy goal only put the knife in even more.

But after that I knew it was hopeless. Our defensive substitutions meant that there was no way we would be conjuring a goal in extra time. Our only hope was hanging on for penalties and that was unlikely given the momentum was against us and Alloa would be lifted and us deflated.

And the final nail in the coffin was driven in by an ex-Son in Jordan Kirkpatrick. Cracking goal though.

If only….

Kevin Nisbet had directed his header downwards more – or even to the near post rather than back across the keeper….

Andy Stirling had kept that rebound chance down instead of skying it….

Liam Burt had taken the ball for a walk to the corner flag instead of trying to score in injury time….

Alloa had scored from that double chance in the first, not the last minute. We’d have had to come out a bit and at least try to score. Froxy might even have been given a run-out….

We’d made the most of our breaks up the park in the second half last Wednesday….

Craig Barr hadn’t been suspended again. Dougie Hill looked much less comfortable than he did against Arbroath and Andy Dowie seemed affected too….

We actually had a striker….

Manager Stevie Aitken was not so wedded to defensive tactics….

It was a game too far really. We looked leggy and inhibited. All those catch-up games and the Challenge Cup run had taken their toll.

And so the great adventure comes to an end after six years.

Back to proper football grounds again next season. Ones where you can stand, not sit, that you can walk round to the other end at half-time, where you’re not stuck in a wee corner of the main stand. (New Broomfield, Stark’s Park and possibly Ochilview excepted.*)

We’ve had seven promotions in my lifetime. And now eight relegations.

I wonder how long it will be before we get promoted again.

And from which division.

*Edited to add:- and New Bayview. I’d forgotten it’s a one stand effort like ours at the Rock. Only the Angus grounds for the old-style experience, then. I can’t see me making it down to Stranraer.

SPFL Tier 2, Almondvale Stadium, 27/1/18

Well, we couldn’t punch our way out of a paper bag today.

All the more annoying for the fact that we had the majority of the ball in the early part of the game yet had no efforts on target to their 4 before they scored – another lost from a set piece.

The second was just laughable, when (Andy Dowie was it?*) got himself into a fankle on the edge of our box and as a result the ball was on a plate for Ryan Hardie to score against us for a fourth different club.

Game over.

We did eventually make their keeper make a save (four in all I made it) but all of those came from long range.

Our starting formation was an odd managerial choice in 3-4-2-1. We did look slightly better when Froxy came on for Dougie Hill in the second half and we shifted to 4-3-1-2 but by that time Livvy were comfortably in control of the game and looked at ease in everything they did.

New loan signing Kevin Nisbet did look to have something to him but both he and Iain Russell really got very little service, neither of them had achance of any description.

So it has come to pass. We’re now in ninth place. I know we’ve suffered with injuries but even with most of them back I seriously doubt that we’ll improve on that position by season’s end. Nerve-wracking play-offs loom.

*Apologies/ It seems it was Dougie Hill