Day Nine: Elgin City (Borough Briggs)

Elgin City v East Stirlingshire

21st August (3pm Kick-off)

Second time this season we're off to watch East Stirlingshire away from home and it's another huge drive, this time to Elgin. As such it's been requested that I meet my dad at his house at 10.15am for the 170 mile drive north.

The drive up the A9 is uneventful but the drive from Granton-on-Spey up the A95 to Elgin was gorgeous. I if I ever win Euro Lotto I've seen a house or two up there that I could be more than happy in. We arrive in Elgin a mere 50 minutes before kick off, park up and tuck in to the pack lunch lovingly prepared this morning at early o'clock by Emma. After lunch we join the throngs flooding into Borough Briggs.

My dad tells me the last time he was here was back in '72 to watch his beloved Kilmarnock beat Elgin 4 - 1 in a Scottish Cup game. I hope this game gives us the same enjoyment that would have given him.

This looks like being the cheapest ground yet as it's only £8 for me and £4 for my dad. We take a wander around the ground trying to decide if we'll stand in the open behind either goal, under shelter on the terracing or sat in the stand. I was 38 last week and I'm getting on a bit so we decide on a seat in the stand.

On our way towards the stand we make a stop to buy a Pie. Turns out the Club Shop is located within the Pie stand. You can normally just get a pie, Bovril or Mars-Bar at the pie stand not here, here you can buy your Elgin City memorabilia. I doubt we'll find this anywhere else in Scotland. My dad awards this a 7 out of 10, "it's a good pie, but it's not quite up to the Motherwell pie last weekend".

As we try to take a seat in the stand, we're asked to pay a further £2 each for the privilege. Weird, why don't they just charge you £10 at the gates?

Sitting in the stand we see the same East Stirlingshire fans we saw at Annan and they're just as noisy. This time they've brought four or five of those vuvuzela horns with them, something the ground announcer has noticed "For all those away fans with those vuvuzela horns this is just for you" and he proceeded to play a war tune of sorts that finished with a flourish of machine gun noise - brilliant effort. Still it doesn't dampen the away fans' spirit, actually I think a few of them have been on the spirits already.

The game kicks off and we wait almost 20 minutes for the first attempt when a Craig Tully diving header goes just wide of the East Stirlingshire post. The first shot on target comes after 28 minutes. Riveting is not how I'd describe the football on show.

The home side missed a great chance to score on the stroke of half time when Inglis played a great ball into the box only for Crooks to blast the ball over from eight yards. Both managers are going to have to work some magic at half time to brighten up this game.

In the first minute of the second half a back pass by the away team's David Dunn is woefully short and Craig Gunn picks it up and, with a straight run in on goal, finishes it off by blasting the ball high and wide of the goal, it was a great chance to take the lead.

The next 30 minutes are pretty awful and it looks looks like we might be in for our first nil-nil draw. However, in the 77th minute the Elgin City keeper, Scott Bain, takes too long to clear a back pass and it's charged down by East Sirlingshire's Kelly. The keeper, who happens to be making his debut on loan from Aberdeen, brings him down and receives a yellow card for his troubles. No sooner has he picked himself up than he's picking the ball out the back of the net, as David Dunn sends him the wrong way. The home players are furious with the referee however as scorer does the 'stop start run up' before shooting. I'm sure this has been outlawed for this season and the kick should've been re-taken but the goal stands.

East Stirlingshire's second goal is a belter, a free kick from 30 yards from Jamie Stevenson which gave the keeper no chance and the away fans celebrate wildly. The only downside for the away team is the fact Paul Miller gets himself sent off in injury time for a second bookable offence. I can't actually tell what he did as it was an off the ball incident spotted only by the linesman. I can tell you that it had something to do with Elgin's Neil McDonald; he'd been winding up the away players for 90 minutes.

The game finishes two nil to East Stirlingshire and this result leaves Elgin rooted to the bottom of Division Three with no points from three games and a -8 goal difference. Looks like a long season ahead for them.

The Statistics
Ticket: £8 (£4) An extra £2 each to sit in the stand.

Programme: £2

Attendance: 602

Pie: £1.30

Pie Marks: 7/10

Man of the Match: Dad - Jake Inglis (Elgin City) Me - I can't think of one player who deserves this accollade

Final Score: Elgin City 0 - East Stirlingshire 2

Mileage: 370 miles

Fact of the Day: Elgin's ground is the most northern professional ground in Scotland

Next Game: Alloa - Recreation Park (August 24th)

Day Eight: Motherwell (Fir Park)

Motherwell v Hibernian

August 15th (12 noon Kick-off)

Nice easy 10.30am start today for the short journey over to Motherwell. A short walk to the ground and we arrive at Fir Park about a quarter of an hour before kick off for our first game of the new SPL season. I'm in a great mood after the Aberdeen result yesterday (that's the team I follow in case any of you didn't know). It's our first win at home on the opening day for sixteen years.It was also a record breaking day as Paul Hartley became the first player in the SPL to score a hat-trick on his debut. Sorry I'm getting off track but with facts like these I hope you forgive me.

We take our seat in the Motherwell end as close to the Hibs fans as possible without sitting in with the die-hard supporters. It doesn't take long for the singing to start with the Motherwell supporters belting out 'We're all going on a European tour' to the tune of The Beatles Yellow Submarine - a dig at the fact Hibs got knocked out of the Europa League whilst Motherwell are still in it.

For an opening game of the season it's a surprise to see that Hibs fans have only been given the lower half of the away stand and vast areas of the main stand empty. My dad, who's a fountain of knowledge for all things concerning Scottish football, tells me that back in 1962 Motherwell sold two players to Liverpool and with the money they received they decided to build a stand. They built the framework the full length of the pitch but homeowners behind the ground complained and Motherwell Council sided with them. As a result, Motherwell were only allowed to built it to 3/4's of it's original size (you can see the extra steel framework in the photo above) and it gets worse, as many Motherwell fans felt the money should have been spent on players, they refused to sit in the newly constructed stand. To this day many Motherwell fans still refuse to sit there.

On to your favourite part of the blog; the Pie Report. It seems that it's no longer a half time treat, although this time my Dad claims 'its lunchtime isn't it?' After the high scoring pie at Ross County yesterday, Motherwell have a lot to live up to - and they do just that. My dad scores it 7.5/10, making the Motherwell Pie jump to the top of the leaderboard. According to him 'the crust is almost perfect, temperature is spot on and the meaty-based filling is 'not too salty'.

The first half starts with a flourish and Anthony Stokes of Hibs is unfortunate to see the Motherwell keeper's big toe stick a 5th minute effort past the post. Motherwell come back into the game and are passing the ball around effortlessly on the newly relaid Motherwell pitch. They spent £350,000 on it two summers back and a further £100,000 on it this summer and they're rewarded with a 13th minute goal from John Sutton. This brought rapturous roars from the home fans and they continued to berate the away support with various takes on the aforementioned Europa League defeat suffered by Hibernian.

Motherwell were in complete control of the first half and, with the excellent play of Murphy and Humphrey, really should have capitalised on all their possession to have gone two or three up. As it was, in the second of the three added first half minutes, a Riordan free kick was headed down by Samba to Stokes who smashed the ball home. It was really against the run of play and probably undeserved. Would it however be a catalyst for a better Hibs performance in the second half?

We were treated to a number of half- time messages but to be honest I couldn't understand any of it as it was if the announcer had his foot stuck on a reverb. button and the sound echoed around the ground. The goal at the end of the half had finally woken the quiet away support and we were treated to the 'Hibees, Hibees' chant, the Motherwell supporters replying with the traditional 'Shite, Shite' response. Such wit I hear you say.

The second half started and it seemed as though whatever 'hair-dryer' treatment 'Yogi' Hughes had given his players seemed to work as Hibs came out much brighter than the previous half. Stokes should have scored only three minutes in but his curling drive was pushed round the post. The impressive Humphrey's then saw his cross-come-shot bounce back off the inside of the post for Motherwell.

Hibs then scored a contentious second from a Riordan corner, from where I and many irate Motherwell fans were sat it looked like the Motherwell keeper was blocked before a Hibs player (Hanlon) put it in with his hand. The referee who to his credit was a lot closer than me didn't see it this way and the goal stood.

Motherwell then had a stone wall penalty turn denied when Sutton was felled in the box. To the disgust of the home support Hibs promptly marched up the other end and Liam Miller scored a sweet third goal nutmegging the keeper in the process.

Motherwell were thrown a way back into the game two minutes later when the referee awarded a penalty, perhaps to make amends for the one he failed to give earlier and Jamie Murphy stepped up and scored. Where we going to be treated to another result similar to the last time these two teams played here - a six all draw!

Motherwell pushed forward to find the equalizer and it was surprising to see some home fans leaving with five minutes to go when their side were still in with a shout of the draw. There was however no goal to be found and Hibs left Fir Park with all three points.

All in all an enjoyable start to the SPL campaign and both of these sides played some good football, it's a shame they both didn't do it in the same half.

A final point must go to the SFA, who this week fined Motherwell £50,000 for the horrendous playing surface they've had here for the past two seasons, only to announce that £45,000 of

this would be suspended. What's the point in telling them off with 90% of the original figure?

The Statistics

Ticket Price: £18 (£14 concession)
Programme: £3

Attendance: 5172

Pie: £1.70

Pie Marks: 7.5/10

Man of the Match: Dad -Liam Miller (Hibernian) Me - Jamie Murphy (Motherwell)

Final Score: Motherwell 2 - Hibernian 3

Mileage: 70 miles

Fact of the Day: Oldest Manager in Scotland - Craig Brown 70 years young.

Next game: Elgin City - Borough Briggs (21st August)

Day Seven: Ross County (Victoria Park)

Ross County v Falkirk

14th August (3pm Kick-off)

So here we are for the longest drive of the campaign yet; hence the fact I've been summoned to my dad's house for an 9.30am start for the journey to Dingwall. I know you're all thinking the same thing - that's a bit early isn't it? Regular readers will know this is par for the course.

The drive north was lovely and I felt a warm glow in my stomach as Inverness came into view. I was born here you see, fair enough it was a wee while ago now but it was good to see the city looking so good. The drive out to Dingwall takes you past the Inverness Caledonian Thistle ground and it was crazy to see about fifty people standing just on the side of the road just trying to catch a glimpse of the Inverness CT v Celtic game.

We arrived in Dingwall about an hour before the game, but this time we put the extra time to good use and had a wander round town. A friend of mine - Blair - had recommended we find a butchers shop called 'Campbells' as their Haggis Pie is 'exceptional'. Alas we wandered up and down the High Street but couldn't see it. Shame, although we did have the pie at the ground to look forward to to soften the blow.

My dad continued his new tradition of having his pie before the football and was rewarded with what he described as the best pie yet, even better than the 7 out of 10 awarded to Stranraer. He told me he was going to return at half time for the Haggis Pie, I'll stick to the good old fashioned Scotch Pie.

As the teams were warming up my Dad enquired as to who the referee was, a quick check of the programme revealed it was Iain Brines. 'I thought so' said my dad 'he's a bloody useless pillock, we had him at Kilmarnock a few times last season' (my dad's a season ticket holder at Kilmarnock you see, in fact he's going to every Killie home game this season too- I have to draw the line somewhere) 'we'll be in from another dire performance today'.

And it so happens he was right. It was a poor game if I'm honest and I guess it had to come eventually. Neither side had any real control of the game for any sustained periods and it was littered with dirty challenges that went unpunished. Carl Finnegan of Falkirk was the main culprit and he could have been booked for many of the niggling challenges he made and eventually the Falkirk boss substituted him before he was sent off.

Ross County seemed happy to try and play the ball over the top of the Falkirk defence but time and time again the giant defenders were in full command. To be fair, Falkirk did try and pass it about a bit more but they didn't provide any real threat, this was until the referee awarded a ridiculously soft free kick and Ryan Flynn (back at the club after a brief spell at Liverpool) found space in the box and slotted home after 36 minutes.

At half time my dad kept his promise and dived down for the Haggis Pie 'looked better than it tasted'. We decided to move from our seats in the 'away fans' section of the stand as we were all alone. The away fans were stood behind the goals and the home fans occupied the rest of the stand. We moved up the back to an area with lots of empty seats and soon discovered that the reason it was so quiet is because you can't actually see one of the goals, so we moved again, 3 seat changes in one game, and found ourselves sat in the brilliant sunshine.

It was, however, a very poor second half of football, made all the worse by an old man stood not far from us who seemed to have tourettes as all he shouted was 'Come on County' over and over and over...

The game finished with Falkirk victorious. Falkirk are considered by many to be the favourites to win the SFL League 1 title this season but I think they'll have to improve a fair bit to fulfil that.

Here's hoping the second game of this weekend's double header at Fir Park tomorrow turns out to be better than this dross.

The Statistics

Ticket Price: £14 (£10)

Programme: £2

Attendance: 2387

Pie: £1.70

Pie Marks: 7/10 - Best yet according to my father.

Man of the Match: Dad - Kenny Deuchar (Falkirk) Me - Scott Boyd (Ross County)

Final Score: Ross County 0 - Falkirk 1

Mileage: 326 miles

Fact of the Day: Smallest town in Scotland to have a professional league side. Population of Dingwall is around 5000.

Next Game: Motherwell - Fir Park (August 15th)

Day Six: East Fife (Bayview Stadium)

East Fife v Stirling Albion
10th August (7.45pm kick off)

First midweek adventure out of the City: picked up from work to travel across the Bridge to Methil. It took us almost as long to get over the Bridge as it did the rest of the journey - couldn't do this every day.

Still, we managed to negotiate our way through the Kingdom of Fife, without any problems, to East Fife's new ground 'Bayview Stadium', arriving 45 minutes before kick-off. Time to take some photo's of the disused power station sat right in front of the stadium. Must be the only ground in Scotland with one of these on the door step.

So we're here for the 2nd round of the ALBA Challenge Cup between East Fife and Stirling Albion. I feel as though i should be supporting Stirling seeing as my two nephews (Boyd and Max) recently bought shares to help keep the club afloat, but it's the home end we find ourselves sitting in. The Stadium announcer read out the two teams and then the two ball boys. In 30 odd years of watching football I've never heard the ball boys being named for the masses before. Weird.

Having been caught out a few times now by woefully short pie supply, my dad has promoted the pie tasting element of this adventure from half time to 'as soon as we get through the turnstiles'.I'll wait and have it as the more traditional half time nourishment. Good thing too, as it seems Egon Ronay beside me feels his pie as 'very unusual with it's Steak Pie crust and excess salty filling, I'd give it one less than the Stranraer effort'. That'll be a four out of ten then!

We take our place in the stand, surrounded by season ticket holders, and it's a bright start by the home side as Byrne scores after only 3 minutes. It's a cracking opening to the game and 2nd division East Fife are playing much better football than their 1st division opponents. East Fife's player manager Stevie Crawford (he of many clubs including Hibs, Millwall and Aberdeen) is having a cracking game.

Having visited a couple of smaller clubs now, I feel the disappointing thing about the small one-sided stadiums is the lack of banter between the two sets of fans, as the away fans are stuck away in the far corner, out of your line of sight.

Slowly, Stirling force their way back into the game and are rewarded on the half hour with a goal straight from a corner by Devine. The East Fife keeper had a 'mare to be honest and this wasn't the first mistake he made and the home crowd made their feelings very clear on his performance; although not as clear as their feelings towards the near-side linesman, who had a complete shocker! How he missed the Stirling centre forward aiming a kick at East Fife's central defender I've no idea, if he or the ref had seen it it would've been a straight red card. It's funny to see the match officials are sponsored by SpecSavers!!

The second half was a great 45 minutes of football. East Fife, and particularly Johnson, Crawford and Linn, were playing some great football. East Fife scored 4 minutes into the half and controlled the second half. Stirling just had no answer to their more incisive opponents and East Fife should have been three or four in front by the time we heard the first chant of the evening from either set of fans - a rousing version of 'In your Cowdenbeath slums'.

The game finished with a flourish of substitutes from both teams and with almost his first touch of the ball East Fife's Cargill finished off a great passing move on 88 minutes. You would think this would be greeted by a roar of approval, but truth be told the home fans got a little nervy, well you would after throwing away a two goal lead in their last two games. The referee put everyone at ease a few minutes later with the final whistle.

All in all a great night out, four goals a good game and a fly over from a fighter jet on it's way home to RAF Leuchars. You don't get that at every game.

Dammit! Didn't manage to squeeze in 'Methil no more'...

The Statistics
Ticket Price: £13 (£7 concession)
Programme: £1.50
Attendance: 512
Pie: £1.50
Pie Marks: 4/10
Man of the Match: Stevie Crawford (East Fife)
Final Score: East Fife 3 - Stirling Albion 1
Mileage: 75 miles
Fact of the Day: Closest ground to a disused Power Station

Next game: Ross County - Victoria Park (14th August)

Day Five: Annan Athletic (Galabank Stadium)

Annan Athletic v East Stirlingshire

Saturday 7th August (3pm Kick-off)

Fear not followers, the time and distance calculations were out again today. Left Edinburgh at 11.30 this morning and arrived in Annan at 1.45pm. Only 1hr and 15 minutes before kick off, still at least we got a parking space. First game of the new 3rd division season you see, crowd will be heaving.

We sat in the car, eating our tasty pack lunch - cheers Emma - rather than sit in the club's social club and watch the Rangers v Newcastle friendly on the box until it was time to watch the game. We wandered round the stadium, took some pictures and ended up stuck in the away end. A kindly steward let us out and told us about the pitch; it's slope is worse than the old Easter Road pitch. It's so bad that the pitch has to be moved next season to take it out of play. God knows how they're going to do that. Move it 5 metres in the required direction and you'll be standing on the main road into Annan to watch the game.

After the last two games debacle with the lack of half time pie's my dad was taking no chance and headed straight to the pie stand before the game had even kicked off. Thing was, however, the pies hadn't arrived at the ground yet - 15 minutes before kick off and nae pies, you should've seen the look on my dad's face.

All was well, however, when 5 minutes later a white transit van drove straight into the ground and delivered Scotch pie's for the waiting throng. £2.40 and two pies later and we'd agreed on a six out of ten marking for the pie, marked down for their hard crusts. My dad reminds me of the judge on Masterchef - not the bald one that likes his puddings, the other one - with his breakdown of the delicacy on offer.

Annan Athletic ran out to the theme tune from The A-Team but East Stirlingshire started the brighter of the two teams, much to the dismay of the (largely senior citizen) crowd around us.

However, after 16 minutes the home team scored. Then they scored a second after 17 minutes. And then a third after 19. Unbelievable, 3 goals in 4 minutes, the first two within 45 seconds. They were good goals too, especially the first one - a Mick Jack curler from the edge of the box.

The 25 or so away fans looked shell-shocked but it didn't take them long to start singing and smacking the advertising hoardings behind the goals, in fact they didn't stop singing all game. The home fans didn't sing one song all game. Seems to be a bit of a trend down in these lower divisions, hopefully that'll improve.

East Stirlingshire pulled one back from a corner, when a header came back off the post, hit the diving keeper on the back and went in. They then had most of the ball for the rest of the half but didn't make anything of it.

Half time entertainment was provided by an advert on the loud speaker for the Ginger Boot. The rest of Europe has the Golden Boot but the top scorer in the SFL also has the chance to add the Ginger Boot to their collection. If you haven't already guessed; it's sponsored by Irn-Bru.

The second half started and the away team had a lot of possession but, as in the first, they just didn't have a way through Annan. They worked hard and even chucked on three subs at the same time to try and freshen it up. Annan went the closest, however, when Gilfillan tried the David Beckham lob from 45 yards, the keeper did well to back track

Nothing much else happened and it finished 3 - 1 for Annan.

To sum up it was a great first half and a dull second. The away fans enjoyed their trip, singing their hearts out, some of them even baring their torsos to the unexpected Scottish afternoon sun (not for the fainthearted). It'd be good to go back in a year or so to see if they've fixed the slope.

As the teams walked off, the tannoy played 'That's all folks', they must have an album of these tunes here at Galabank - and that's all from me until next week!

The Statistics

Ticket Price: £9 (£5 concession)

Programme: £1.50

Attendance: 539

Pie: £1.20

Pie Marks: 6/10

Man of the Match: Dad - John Neil (East Stirlingshire) Me - Aaron Muirhead (Annan Athletic)

Final Score: Annan Athletic 3 v East Stirlingshire 1

Mileage: 182 miles

Fact of the Day: Until 1977 Annan Athletic played in the English minor league - The Carlise & District League

Next game: East Fife - Bay View Stadium (Tuesday 10th August)

Day Four: Hibernian (Easter Road)

Hibernian v NK Maribor

Thursday 5th August (7.45pm kick off)

Hurray, finally we get our time and distance calculations right and arrive at the ground a mere ten minutes before kick off. Guess it helps when you live within 20 minutes walking distance to the stadium.

Huge home support for Hibs' first home game of the season; which is a surprise as Hibs are sitting 3-0 down from the first leg. I hope they do well as the Scottish clubs haven't given a great account of themselves in Europe so far this season.

Flights must be expensive from Slovenia - I didn't see one away supporter! Quick update on the lack of away fans. The Edinburgh Evening News informed me that the reason behind the lack of fans at the game is because they started fighting amongst themselves(!) on the Royal Mile a couple of hours before the game and 40 of them got locked up over night for their behaviour.

Hibs started nice and brightly and everyone's favourite Edinburgh clubber Derek Riordan should have scored early on, but he shot straight at the keeper from 8 yards. The large home support were loud and in good singing spirits for the first 20 minutes, although lacking the jovial banter of the other games this far, until the Slovenians scored and then it got very quiet.

A sucker punch goal with some sloppy defending at a corner allowed Tavares (Brazillian striker, not the disco funk soul band from America) scored from 5 yards. It was amazing to see the crowd support disappear almost immediately and soon they turned on their own players - Colin Nish receiving most of the vitriol.

Half time came and the rush for the pie stand was fierce. Sorry Callum, no picture of the Haute cuisine this week; I chose the wrong queue, waited for ten minutes, coming away empty handed. Very poor performance from the catering staff, who runs out of pies at the first game!?! Still if I'd been less well fed, I could have got a half time half pizza for £2.70.

Hibs started the second half the brighter but were far too reliant on the long ball over the top. De Graaf was incredibly fortunate to get on the scoresheet for Hibs with a massive deflection from a Stokes shot. Just as the crowd in the South Stand started to believe that it might be possible after all, Kevin McBride chopped down an opponent in the penalty box and the ref pointed to the spot. Even before the penalty hit the back of the net, the clack of the emptying plastic seats was louder than any first half singing, signalling a mass exodus of home fans.

Maribor were a class above and the Hibs crowd showed their appreciation for a brilliantly worked third goal - the second of the game for Tavares - with the emptying of another couple of thousand of seats!

It took a long while for the humour to show through in this game but eventually with 10 minutes to go the home support started ironically cheering every touch and pass from Hibs with an Ole here and an Ole there. Hibs' De Graff managed to salvage a second goal a minute from time. But to be honest this flattered a poor Hibs team and everyone was probably happy to hear the final whistle.

The Statistics
Ticket Price: £15 (£10 concession)
Programme: £3
Attendance: 12,504
Pie: £2.30 - well it would have been if I'd got to buy one!!
Man of the Match: Dad - Armin Bacinovic Me - Dejan Mazga
Final Score: Hibs 2 - 3 NK Maribor
Mileage: 1 mile (walking distance)
Fact of the Day: Hibernian got to the semi-final of the first European Cup in 1955/56

Next Ground: Galabank Stadium - Annan Athletic (7th August)

Day Three: Stranraer (Stair Park)

Stranraer v Greenock Morton

Saturday 31st July (3pm Kick-off)

So I now you're all dying to know if my dad managed to get his time and distance calculation any closer. Simple answer is no. Left Edinburgh at 10.30am and arrived in rainy Stranraer a good 80 minutes before kick off.

Anyway back to the business at hand; It's the first round of the CIS Cup and the second week in a row we get the opportunity to watch 1st division Morton in action. I wonder if we'll see the return of the red boots?

Before the game's even kicked off my old man's desperate to sample the Stranraer Pie and I must admit it's a tale of two pies. Mine was good, nice and warm with a decent crust. My dad's however could've sunk a battleship with it's rock hard crust and, judging by his language, it might have been a touch on the warm side. Still, at only £1.20 it's not a total disaster - funds left for another chance at half time.

Morton are playing in their away strip and the first thing to notice is the fact they've got two different sponsors - Millions (the chewy tiny sweetie) are the sponsors on their home top and Buchanans Toffee sponsor their away top. I reckon they've got a local dentist to sponsor their 3rd strip. The away top's all red so the centre defender's chosen to offset his with white boots today' denying us the chance for a repeat of the legendary 'Dorothy' heckle.

3rd division Stranraer kick things off and even with the annoying hum of the few Vuvuzela's (God I really hope these things don't take off!!) it doesn't take long for Morton to show us they mean business as the left back romps through a static Stranraer defence, cracking a 30 yard drive of the post along the line and out for a by-kick. The deadlock is finally broken in the 27th minute by Stewart Kean. By half time Morton are two up.

The four bus loads of Morton fans are having a great time, especially those dressed in the fake Gazza boobs and cowboy hats; invading the pitch they provided the half time entertainment with their game of imaginary football. Bloody hilarious they were, so it was disappointing when the local bobby came and kicked them off. Must mention the Stranraer catering team underestimating the popularity of their half time refreshments and running out of pies - marks off the overall experience.

Second half kicks off and Morton are four nil up after 54 minutes. Stranraer then have the cheek to score a consolation and Morton go on to take the proverbial and stick another three past them. When the seventh goal went in after 83 minutes a young fella sat near us shouted "okay Stranraer let's just go for the draw", nice to see fans still showing a bit of humour. Unfortunately for him those sort of come backs only take place in Roy of the Rovers....

The Statistics:
Ticket Price: £12 (£6 Concession)
Programme: £2
Attendance: 470
Pie: £1.20
Pie Marks: Me 7/10 - Dad 5/10
Man of the Match: Stewart Kean
Final Score: Stranraer 1 - Greenock Morton 7
Mileage: 260 miles
Fact of the Day: Closet professional ground to Stranraer is Larne FC in Northern Ireland

Next Ground - Easter Road - Hibernian (5th August)