East Fife v Stirling Albion10th August (7.45pm kick off)
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.
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
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