Princess Royal Park, Scottish Cup Second Preliminary Round,12/12/20
Entry– Not when Jason Leitch is involved
Attendance – See Above
Pie – See Above
Pint– See Above
Deveronvale Football Club
Founded – 1938
Nickname – Vale
Honours – Highland Football League – 2002/03, 2005/06, Aberdeenshire Cup –1947–48, 1950–51, 1951–52, 1961–62, 1965–66, 2000–01, 2006–07, 2011–12. Aberdeenshire Shield– 1994–95, 2002–03. Scottish Qualifying Cup (North)– 1951–52, 2001–02
Random Fact – Ian “Molby” Murray, top scorer in both league winning seasons has been a work colleague of mine in Angola for the past five-ish years.
……….and here it was. After spending six weeks away wondering if the Scottish Government would see sense and stop penalizing outdoor sports, I found my self stood on the A98 locked out of a fitba ground peering in. The original plan was for a trip up to Scourie but for a combination of a change of venue, Wee Man being occupied by some unmentioned to me daytime plans and tea with the Banks o’ Dee-er I kept it local today(21 miles). It was also not a new one for me . It was just for a fitba fix and the visit of Camelon for their first ever Scottish Cup tie was a definite draw for me. Albeit standing from the main road vantage point.
Glad I took this on. The visitors were very good for their money. Wee Man and myself caught the Mariners defeating Linlithgow Rose a couple of seasons ago and to this day it has been one of the surprise packages I have seen. I knew very little of them and came away after seeing them at Carmuirs Park(magic ground for the record) and a comfortable two nil win, I knew enough to know this would be a tough shift for the Vale today.That is exactly how it turned out
In front of the clubs officials who were officially in attendance at a slick PRP , but also the unofficially attending ten or so on ladders in Canal Park, ten or so more on the main road and the dude perched on the floodlight, the home side were to crash out of the Scottish Cup convincingly to the Falkirk side.
The game started in a fast manner with Camelon utilising the left side of the park to great affect. This creating some early half chances for the visitors stemming from balls in from wide. The Vale custodian Still having his finger tips stung with a good save from close range on around twelve minutes being the first real great chance . He really should have been beaten soon after when another chance went a begging when the Camelon striker dithered in the box when he should have stuck the laces through it. The visitors were good in the attacking sense but the Vale weren’t out of the game. The issue was they were not great in the final third and quite honestly didn’t really get into it during the half. Camelon were denied by some great last ditch tacking at various important moments in the first half but it was not to last as the dangerous left hand side of McKenzie and Kane’s haranguing won a corner on around half an hour. The ball went in, Still came out and got nothing on it leaving Connor McMullan to head home. The second was not far behind and again goes down to keeper error. Docherty saw his chance and hit a speculative thirty yard lobbed effort which found its way over the head of the lead footed keeper. He just didn’t get up at all. This sending Deveronvale in at HT with a tough task in the second half
HT 0-2
Camelon came out smelling more blood and should have been three up within a minute when McMullan headed over from close range. Harder to miss than score, but this set the tone for the next half an hour. The third came when Camelon looked like the walked through the Vales backline with a neat passing move being finished of by Mark Stowe who calmly finished across the keeper from ten yards. Then it was four….. and again the Deveronvale players will not like to see this back as they were posted MIA. McMullan was there there to easily nod home from a yard or two into a pretty much empty net at the back post. Everyone in red seemed to switch off and ball watch. Very poor stuff . What wasn’t poor was McMullans ability to vault the railings to prevent injury as his velocity after running in to head home, sent him careering towards the sponsor boards but with quick thinking managed to channel his inner childhood PE pommel horse classes and escaped unscathed. From here the Mariners dropped the ball a bit and allowed the Vale a few chances but weren’t punished until very late on when the goal of the game came from Grant Noble who after a bit of a stramash in the box managed to direct a scorcher across goal from twelve yards passing a clutch of players that must have had at least fifteen men in it. It found the only possible gap ,kissed the post and the Vale got a consolation but it was was far to late for it to affect the Camelon heading to the first round proper an the Scottish Cup.
I love the early rounds of the Scottish Cup. It is the best part of the tournament, but why oh why are were left locked out. To say that a dogs dinner has been made of this situation is an insult to tripe. Its a serious shit show now. Get it sorted
Me still 189
FITBAWBAG 