In the Third Round of the Scottish Cup Sons have been drawn to play Bonnyrigg Rose at New Dundas Park, Bonnyrigg on 26^th November.

This will be the first time we have played a junior team in the Cup. It will be tricky as they are bound to be very up for it. Even more so considering we haven’t won an away match for nigh on a year.

They beat the Highland League champions in the last round which attests to their abilities.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this…..

I have mentioned the Beach Ballroom several times, but all of these refer back to my original post.

On the same day Sons played Aberdeen in the Cup quarter-final (over two years ago) I actually got round to taking photos of it myself.

Frontage:-

Entrance. Good glazing on the doors:-

From entrance looking east:-

Frontage from east:-

East elevation from south:-

North portion (Star Ballroom) from east:-

Star Ballroom entrance. Good detailing above door:-

Easst elevation from north:-

West elevation from (south)west:-

Entrance block from west:-

SPFL Tier 2, The Rock, 16/4/16.

It started well. It finished; well…..

Pity about the bit in between. And the injury to big Christian Nade is a blow as we’ve only looked a team this season after he joined us.

I watched this courtesy of BBC Alba of course and things were looking okay at half time. Tom Walsh had even hit a good cross!

What happened in the second half though? We totally fell out of it even before Nade’s injury. Jamie Ewings didn’t have much of a hope with any of the three goals; a poorish kick-out led to one of them but the defence should still not have let Raith through so easily. They seemed to just walk through for two of the three, the other coming from a not deep enough clearance by Fraser Wright.

Despite never having hit a decent cross before this game Tom Walsh ended this with two assists, and doesn’t Steven Saunders love a goal against Raith? Too little too late of course.

We really need something from Saturday now but a draw against St Mirren might not be good enough. We don’t want to be relying on Rangers and Raith even if Queen of the South do the needful.

I note that with Rangers and Hibs progressing to this year’s final East Fife’s record of being the only team outwith the top division to win the Scottish Cup has now been lost. And wouldn’t it be just the thing if Hibs finally win the thing again after totally horsing up the league? (Or Hibsing it as now seems to be the parlance.)

Mind you it’d be a laugh to see them navigating a European campaign from the second tier.

Then again maybe not.

Scottish Cup Fifth Round, Dens Park, 23/2/16.

I kind of expected something like this. We don’t have a good record at Dens and midweek games are problematic for part-time teams against full-timers. Yet things could have been so different.

It was my first look at Christian Nade as a Son – and at Kler Heh too. Nade was the sort of forward we haven’t had in such a long time. He held the ball up and distributed it well. He’s not the quickest but his control is good. He’s the focus in attack we’ve been desperately needing. I doubt he’ll score many but he may allow time for others to get forward in support. Heh seemed a bit lightweight against this kind of opposition but he clearly has talent. He’ll need to savvy up about shielding the ball though and learn to avoid being shrugged off it.

We looked OK for 15 minutes and Dundee, while a cut above our usual opponents, weren’t really threatening, then ex-Son Paul McGinn wriggled clear in the box and beat Mark Brown at his near post and it might as well have been all over. It was after half an hour, though. Mark Brown waited to gather the ball, attacker Kane Hemmings didn’t. No way were we getting two goals back.

The third was a collective failure as Greg Stewart waltzed across the front of the defence before hitting his shot past Brown who seemed slow in getting down. (Do you sense a pattern here?)

The fourth was a joke. Mark Brown parried straight out a ball he could almost certainly have caught. It was returned into the net.

The fifth I knew was going in as soon as Jon Routledge made the professional foul. (He got booked for his trouble.) Mark Brown never even moved for the shot despite being nearly on top of it.

In my opinion Brown ought to have saved four out of the five goals. How different would the game have been if he had?

After the third we went to a back three and suddenly had space for going forward. With better crossing into the box we might have got something

Best thing of the night? A Dundee four on one break ended when their player ballooned the cross well over when totally unmarked. Highly amusing. There’s your Premier Division class right there.

Nade’s play gives me hope that we might be more menacing in future. Is that kind of sentiment fatal?

Scottish Cup Fifth Round, The Rock, 6/2/16.

Well it’s another clean sheet and we’re in the hat for the quarter final draw. Plus there ought to be a good portion of gate money for the club from the replay.

Dens Park isn’t far away from Son of the Rock Acres so I’ll doubtless be attending.

Unfortunately St Mirren won today so we dropped a place in the league.

I just hope the Cup doesn’t distract us and detract from our league prospects. Two big away games against teams just above us are coming up.

The fruit of our Cup win against Queen of the South is one of the two above, who have still to settle their tie.

On paper either of them should beat us. But it’s a home game which may count a bit in our favour.

To be played on the first weekend in February.

Scottish Cup Fourth Round, The Rock, 9/1/16.

Well. Here’s a rarity.

These are the first goals we’ve ever scored against Queen of the South at the Rock. Very welcome indeed.

And another round of the Cup to look forward to.

I just hope we can repeat the feat next week. I think I’d rather have the three points.

Scottish Cup, Third Round, The Rock, 8/12/15

A stonking win. Good to see young Donald McCallum get a start and a quick goal (19 seconds!) Also to see Jordan Kirkpatrick get on and score two goals.

Onwards and upwards, eh?

I see from the club website that if we beat Alloa in the Cup our next opponents would be Queen of the South at the Rock.

Given we’ve never even scored a goal against them since we moved to the Rock that’ll be us out of the Cup then.

Right now I’d rather take three points at Alloa this Saturday in the league over progress in the Cup this time next week. Doubtless it’ll be the other way round.

Well this is a surprise.

We haven’t been drawn in the cup against the highest placed league team possible.

(But neither have we drawn a lower league team.)

Instead it’s Alloa at home.

We play them away the next weekend too.