East Lothian Courier | Sport | Burgh crash out as four sent off

Monday, 8th September, 2008

Published: Thursday, 17th April, 2008 09:25

Burgh crash out as four sent off

Comments (0)

Print Article

Musselburgh Athletic 1 v 4 Camelon Juniors

LAST weekend’s fixtures in the south east of Scotland were hit hard by heavy rains which fell over Friday rnight and into Saturday morning.

One of the few matches to survive was at Olive Bank, where Musselburgh Athletic were eventually well beaten by Superleague leaders Camelon Juniors in a Fife & Lothians Cup quarter-final tie.

Sadly, it will be remembered more for the controversy during the match rather than the quality of the play.

Scheduled South Division fixtures at Dunbar and Haddington were called off on Saturday morning, while Tranent Juniors’ ground troubles continued with the Friday night postponement of their Brown Cup tie against Whitburn Juniors.

The annual attack on the fixture backlog began in earnest in midweek, but rules of the East Region SJFA mean a reduced card tomorrow. No teams from the old (pre-2002) East Region will play at home in the hope that fans will travel to Cumbernauld to watch Bathgate Thistle’s Scottish Junior Cup semi final.

The rules, however, have been relaxed to allow last week’s two postponed South Division fixtures to be rescheduled. Dunbar United host West Calder United, while Livingston United are Haddington Athletic’s visitors.

Musselburgh face Premier League champions-elect Bo’ness United away from home this evening (Friday), while Tranent have no fixture.

Burgh went into another challenging cup tie last Saturday in fine form, with a six game unbeaten including notable results against Forfar West End, Oakley United, Bo’ness United and Newtongrange Star.

Three changes to the team which won comfortably at Dunbar saw Ronnie McPherson return in goal, with Brian Murray and Paul Currie starting in midfield. Derek Polowyj and Johnny Bain were missing while Martin Murphy was on the bench.

With Camelon topping the Superleague, and on a great run of themselves, this looked as tough a test against east of Scotland opposition that Burgh could face.

Conditions in the build-up to the game gave rise to some concern, but the Olive Bank pitch was in good condition come kick-off time, if inevitably heavy.

The first 45 minutes provided great entertainment for the fans, with Musselburgh, in particular, playing some very impressive football at times.

If they had taken just a few of the chances they created, they might have been out of sight by half-time.

But some wasteful finishing and a fine display by Mariners’ keeper Hutchison kept the score at 1-0 at the interval.

Wes Mitchell, Paul Tansey and CJ Osazuwa had all come close for Burgh by the time they took the lead, while junior internationalist Lister had Camelon’s best chance.

On 25 minutes, visiting defender Kiczinsky was penalised for handling in his own penalty area. He was red-carded, leaving Davie McGlynn’s men facing an hour against 10 men.

After a long delay, Paul Currie did the necessary from the spot and it looked good for Musselburgh at this stage.

Chris King then forced a great save from Hutchison, while Danny Kelly spurned a decent opportunity when he mis-hit his shot.

Controversy erupted again four minutes from the break when the referee reached for his red card for a second time, dismissing Craig McManus for a foul on Lister almost 40 yards from goal.The official judged that the Burgh player had denied his opponent a goalscoring opportunity. Currie’s penalty was all that separated the sides at the break.

The second half was only two minutes old when McManus’ central defensive partner Mitchell joined him in the dressing room.

In the referee’s eyes, Mitchell was guilty of a similar crime to McManus, albeit, this time the ball was deep inside the Burgh penalty area. McLaren brought Camelon level with the second penalty of the game.

The visitors were now in the ascendancy, although, nine-man Burgh were still creating chances.

It was Camelon who went in front through Shirra after 73 minutes. Scott Devlin was the third home player to be shown the red card two minutes later by an increasingly unpopular referee.

The visitors made sure of their place in the last four of the competition with goals from Mooney on 82 minutes and Lister with five minutes left.

With rain falling heavily last Saturday morning to leave pools of water forming on the Millfield playing surface, concerned club officials called for a late pitch inspection.

It was after 11am that the attendant referee ruled the pitch unplayable, although not without some deliberation.

Although he would have preferred to play the match, Hi Hi’s boss George Bowmaker will take some consolation from the fact that goalkeeper Chris Hill, who was unavailable last week and whose absence meant a trialist was used, is available tomorrow as Livingston travel east for the quickly re-scheduled fixture.

After an incredible 5-5 draw a fortnight ago at Arniston, where they’d been five goals down, United suffered a heavy defeat under the Linlithgow floodlights. They were soundly beaten 9-1 and will be keen to bounce back.

Nothing other than victory will satisfy Haddington, whose immediate target is to reduce the 10 point gap between them and leaders Fauldhouse United. United had played two games more before their tricky midweek trip to Sauchie. Fit again Davie Anderson and Jamie Connelly should feature for the Hi Hi.

Six postponements from 15 matches is the Seasiders’ 2008 record following the calling off of last weekend’s scheduled visit from West Calder United.

Although not normally prone to cancellations, New Countess Park had been subject to a lot of heavy rain and West Calder were informed of the situation early on Saturday morning.

The teams will try to fulfil the fixture again tomorrow. Should they do so, Dunbar will have five South Division games still to play as well as their Fife & Lothians Cup quarter final at home to Bathgate Thistle.

Boss Jock Landells’ aim is to finish as high up the table as possible.

Completion of a league double over West Calder, beaten 3-0 on their own turf in November, will be a good start.

Tranent had originally been scheduled to travel to meet Arniston Rangers in a St Michael’s Cup tie last Saturday.

But a late fixture reshuffle gave them a tougher-looking task. Whitburn Juniors may have slipped from the top of the Superleague table recently, but they are still in title contention and they were red-hot favourites to take care of a Tranent side without a win since November.

However, wet weather, combined with the faulty drainage system at Foresters Park, forced an early postponement of the tie.Tranent offered to concede home advantage and play the Brown Cup match at Whitburn, but the SJFA ruled out the switch.

The rules dictate that as Central Park is within 25 miles of Broadwood Stadium in Cumbernauld, where Cumnock Juniors were playing Thornton Hibs in the semi final of the Scottish Junior Cup. The Tranent officials have now conceded the tie to Whitburn.

Comments