2021/22 – Rutherglen Glencairn 3 v 1 Finnart

Hamish B Allan Stadium, Kilmarnock Pie Cup, 10/12/21

Entrance – £7 Me, £0 Wee Man

Attendance – 98 (rough head count)

Pie – £4.20, sausage roll, hot dog, coffee

Pint – N/A

Rutherglen Glencairn Football Club

Founded – 1896

Nickname – The Glens

Honours – Scottish Junior Cup -1901/02, 1918/19, 1926/27, 1938/39. West of Scotland Superleague Premier Division – 2009/10, 2018/19. Glasgow Junior League – 1898/99, 1901/02, 1918/19, 1921/22.

Random Fact – The club were the first side to win the Scottish Junior cup in 4 consecutive decades 1900s, 1910s, 1920s and 1930s. This since equaled by Auchinleck Talbot

The Tunnocks Caramel Wafer Cup has a challenger for the best named cup in business now, The Kilmarnock Pie Cup. When you think about it we don’t promote healthy diets when we name our cups in this country. Irn Bru, Tennents, Bells, Coca Cola to name a few more.

This would be our last Friday night lights for a while with my upcoming (and final) trip to Angola coming up on Wednesday, a hike to Glasgow straight from the school run was the idea as I was wary of traffic. Turns out there was no traffic at all leaving us in the car park of New Southcroft Park with the guts of an hour before kick off. A bit of hangman on Wee Man’s tablet soon filled in some time before we entered the ground with the plan of a wee kick about pre-game. Unfortunately, the freezing temperatures put that to bed as the ground was like a bottle. So much so Wee Man took a tumble at the gate hurting his hip in the process just next to the gate.

Tonight was a bit up and down. I managed to put faces to the names of a few affable folk from twitter, who turned out to be as affable in person. I also won the half time draw. But tonight just was not Wee Man’s night. He was not himself and seemed to have the attention span of a gnat. A game usually sees him quite fixated, for most of the game at least but he was just not into it tonight.There was no hundred questions or just general observations. He was more interested in throwing sticks and kicking stones about. So much so he missed three of the four goals. Not his usual behavior and was strange, but I just put it down to the fact he is just a wee boy at the time.

Coming into this match I wasn’t sure what to expect. By this I mean The Glens are in the top flight of the WOSFL and Finnart are new kids on the block and are in the bottom tier. How big a gulf would there be, if any? As the match showed, there wasn’t a huge difference and both teams had spells of being the better team. Glencairn saw more of the ball in the opening stages but didn’t really do anything with it where it counted. Finnart when on the ball got it down and tried to play good fitba too. One decent move led to a controversial moment in the match when there was a penalty claim for the visitors, from where I was, I say pen but interestingly I was also informed it didn’t look like anything from the opposite angle, pen or not it got the Finnart players and officials irate and set the tone for the rest of the game with strong claims for anything and everything from Finnart. Finnart despite having less of the ball had the better of the chances in the half and had three decent efforts from range go the wrong side of the post. The first clear cut chance of the game fell for Rutherglen when McIlveen bounded into the box with only Paton between the sticks to beat but the finish was straight at the keeper. The deadlock should have been broken then, but it was not long after. A corner into the box saw defender Mick O’Byrne rise above the flat footed Finnart defence and head home from close range. The ball seemed to go through Paton who from where I was standing looked like he could maybe have done better. This taking the Glens into the half in the lead.

HT 1 v 0

As stated above half time saw me win the raffle, £10 quid in the hipper (7 really as I bought three). That’s a third win in my ground pestering career, £50 quid, a bottle of whiskey and now a tenner. I can categorically state I am working at a severe loss when it comes to half time draws. Before we left for Glasgow I read up on Rutherglen Glencairn, I knew a bit about this famous old team but one piece of information got me thinking and I would love to know if this is the case. The meeting that led to the formation of the club was held in the Old Jail office in Rutherglen. This due to the fact it was the only place available to host a meeting at the time. This part is fact. But I wonder if the the black and white hoops are to symbolize the history of the foundation and represent this detail of their “pokey” origins. I asked two of the twitter faces on the night if they knew but neither knew. I really hope this is the case as its a great random fact and an ace reason for the choice of colours for a team. Answers on a post card.

The second half was much and such the same as the first. Finnart had chances and Glens had the ball. One difference though was Finnart had the ball in the net when Mills fired in for Taylor to tap home from close range. Game on as they say. Both teams had chances from here and were as wasteful as each other but again Finnart had the better chances and will rue at least a couple of the misses. This because The Glens took the lead when Harry Mitchell walloped an effort past Paton on his right from around 20 yards. A cracking strike to put the hosts back in the lead with around twenty minutes to go. Finnart really should have equalised when Johnstone just had to hit the target from close range but managed to send it well over the bar. This was a huge chance and proved costly as Glencairn were soon awarded a penalty which was hotly disputed. I didn’t even realise it was a pen until informed , it looked outside the box to me but the ref was a couple of yards away and who am I to doubt him. But there was definitely contact. Tommy Lone stepped up and Tommy Lone dispatched sending Glencairn into the next round. As we were making our way out the man on the tannoy thanked the people from Aberdeen(i.e us) for travelling to watch the game and wished us a safe journey home . A nice touch from a decent friendly club(Everyone we spoke to were fine folk)

In the car I asked the Wee Man what was up tonight due to his lack of attention to the match. His reply “I wasn’t bothered about the football because I was sad”. When asked why he replied “because you are going to work and I don’t want you to”. That would explain it then. For anyone that’s never been in this position before , it fucking sucks big time.

Me 219, Wee Man 88