Whitton Park, East Region SJFA Midland League, 8/2/22
Entrance – Me £6, Wee Man £0
Attendance – 125
Pie – Pie, Coffee, Crisps £3.50
Pint – N/A
Broughty Athletic Junior Football Club
Founded – 1920 (as Broughty Ex- Servicemen)
Nickname – The Fed
Honours – East of Scotland Junior Cup – 2018/19, East Region North Division – 2009/10
Random Fact – Many moons ago in 1996, I played at Whitton Park (Claypotts Park at the time) against Dundee United for Ellon Colts U12s. The same day AC/DC played Aberdeen which my Dad had to rush me back up the road to attend as it was my first ever gig. The ground and the gig have always been interlinked in my brain and every time I see the ground I think Angus and co.
This was as routine a win as the come for the Fed. From very early on this game looked to be a foregone conclusion. The same cannot be said for parking at Whitton Park. What a nightmare we had trying to find a space . Nothing routine about this at all. The grounds car park was full, the nearest residential bits were full leaving us to park at Sainsburys a bit down the road. This leading to missing kick off.
The fact we were late on arrival led to us walking into the ground looking up the pitch and the first thing we saw being Findlay Baird put the hosts up from close range after maybe 8 minutes. This was to be the start of some serious one way traffic as Broughty camped themselves out in the Harp half and only a matter of a few minutes later Baird notched his second of the match. Wee Man told me this was to be a “big score” and he was not wrong. Interestingly I checked the league pre game and noticed Broughty’s GD was the second best in the league at +74 over 24 games behind leaders East Craigie and Harp’s despite being two places below Athletic was just less than their games played. Going by that I thought Harp could maybe frustrate Broughty but I was was well wrong. Two was three not long after when Rikki Gillespie hit a pin point accurate effort across the goal into the bottom corner from twenty two yards. A quality strike killing the game off on around the half hour. The home side may have been on fire but i really could have done with a fire next to me as the wind picked up as the game aged and it seemed to get colder and colder. Broughty continued to attack and effort after effort came and went. Three up at half time really should have been five , six or maybe even seven
HT 3 v 0
Around twenty six years ago I played here and I still remember the culture shock of the state of the changing rooms etc. There were even jokes about tetanus shots and such like. At half time we had a wander around and the place is unrecognisable to my last visit. To start there is a synthetic pitch these days. There is also an enclosure, perspex dugouts and the areas around the pitch are well kept and in general it is a tidy set up. The clubhouse looks to be in decent nick now too. A different place to the over grown eye opener of yesteryear.
The second half burst into life almost immediately when Aaron Conway burst through the Broughty defence and rounded the keeper to knock home into an empty net. Was this game on? In short……..no. The game continued in the same way as the first half played out. The home side hit the bar before regaining thier three goal lead. This came through Jamie Reid who was on the end of a precision through ball which he calmly slotted past the Harp keeper. A fifth came and was goal of the game. A corner into the box was half cleared and fell to defender Brannan on the edge of the box who well and truly howitzered the ball into the roof of the net. As pure and sweet of a strike as you will see. A cracking finish. The game was well and truly over now and Broughty continued to dominate possession in a very assure fashion. The were very good on the ball as they had been all game and looked like they could create something whenever they needed . I had heard about Josh Skelly prior to attending this match. His scoring exploits are incredible this season and he cannot be far off the 50 mark if not already there. I was interested to see him in action. Broughty had five and he had nothing, he was now trying pot shots from all over trying to get in on the actions but to no avail. On another day he may have had a couple. Typically as I went for a pre drive home piss(two cups of coffee and a bitterly cold wind, you know how it works) he got on the score sheet with a header according to Wee Man. He could of and probably added a second but he saw an effort in the dying embers strike the post. Despite being a seven goal game it was not really exciting if that makes sense. It felt like a friendly as it was so one sided. A good team Broughty Athletic and I am sure they will hand out a few more of these type results before the season concludes. Something else that was strange about the game, was how it flew by. One minute I was watching the Chase, the next I was seeing Wee Man off to bed and somewhere in between there was a ninety minute blur of a game.
Me 220, Wee Man 91
FITBAWBAG 