Le Tout P'ti FC

Fantastic evening at Ferguson Park. Early kick off at 6:15pm due to broken floodlights. Finished Whitehill Welfare 2 Camelon 1 AET. Whitehill progress to the semi final of the King Cup. Camelon achieved the near impossible feat of losing from 1-0 up in injury time with a late own goal and two red cards. Whitehill strolled home from there, even allowing themselves the luxury of a missed penalty. The Camelon Twitter/X report reads not that they died due to hitting themselves over the head repeatedly with a shovel, rather that they played extra time in total darkness and were unlucky to lose. Not near darkness, or gathering dusk, as a normal person would have interpreted it. Nope, their fans were behaving as if they were down a pit head and somebody had forgotten to bring the lamps. In reality it was a standard mid-April evening, sunset followed by 30-40 minutes of dusk. Perfectly visible at full time as you might judge from my second picture. I drove home for 25 minutes and would still have had enough light to play football, so their complaints were ludicrous. So Camelon become the second team from Falkirk to exit a cup in Midlothian this season and, as ever, this was apparently totally down to the appalling conditions their artisanal footballers had to endure rather than anything their opponents may have done to beat them. Good game, enjoyed it thoroughly.

A trip back in time to Dunterlie Park in Barrhead for the Scottish Junior Cup semi-final tie between Arthurlie and Johnstone Burgh. A real throwback day. We had international players of yore on the park (Kyle Lafferty and Graeme Dorans), a Queen’s Park player from the good old days before they became a mediocre chequebook professional team (Bryan Wharton), we had open air loos of the four brick walls / no handwashing facilities style and, most pleasingly, in the pub before the game we had memories of the time when Rangers got beat by Ross County. A decent crowd here, I heard it was 1,300 odd paying punters plus the U12s who got in for free and weren’t counted. The tie is delicately poised at 2-2 before the second leg. Wish Arthurlie well in their quest to introduce running water and soap into their bathrooms. Think I’ve been to 50 (ish) grounds this season and yet this was the first place that didn’t have a proper toilet, which was ironic given that Barrhead was once the town of the Shanks & Co. toilet factory. I think a club of the tradition of Arthurlie should be doing better than this in 2024 but I could see some building works were taking place behind one goal so maybe some improvements are coming.

Disregard my prior contribution, the Thorniewood match was postponed shortly before kick off. In the modern parlance I was able to “pivot”, just along the road to Bellshill (birthplace of most of my music collection), in time for this Bellshill Athletic (4th) v Finnart (3rd) third division promotion six-pointer. Should have chosen this game in the first place. Despite my initial misgivings as I approached the suspiciously cage style ground, I got in to find a quality social club, an excellent pie selection, and an excellent game of football. Bellshill have taken a three goal lead at HT but doubtless more goals to come.

Thorniewood United v Blantyre Victoria. First visit to Robertson Park which has an interesting history, being one of the first Scottish stadia with naming rights. The eponymous John Robertson had a dream to provide soft furnishings at affordable prices to the people of Tannochside and Viewpark. From modest beginnings his range soon expanded into coffee tables, TV units and bookcases. He quickly caught the attention of his competitors in Bellshill (Glens), Uddingston (Hutchison) and Blantyre (Stepek). Their ambition to break out of the Lanarkshire market and into the wider Scottish soft furnishing space led to them forming what is known reverentially in the trade as the Four Cs Group (the curtains, carpets and cushions cartel). Their TV marketing spend in the 1980s was up there with Coca Cola, British Airways and their hated rivals Sterling’s of Tillicoutry. The site of the first Robertson store is now the Highgate Care Home, behind the goals here at Robertson Park. John’s love of football was renowned, and Thorniewood United’s memorable Central League C Division win in 1980/81 was one of his happiest moments, second only in fact to the first time Viv Lumsden cut from the weather forecast to on of his Four Cs commercials. Sandwiched between the STV News and Supergran, he was as happy as a soft furnishings giant can be. A good game is in store here.

Easthouses Lily 2 Tweedmouth Rangers 0 HT. League game switched a modest 20-miles westwards around the bypass to Broxburn as the pitch at Easthouses has been deemed “troubled” since about Halloween. The Lily smartly played with the hurricane behind their back in the first half, scoring two decent goals. Second half will likely be a different matter of course. Crowd was about 19 at kick off, but has shot up closer to 30 now. Anyway glad to get a game in at Albyn Park as I’ve not made it here yet, and I wont be coming back for a Lowland League game next season. EDIT - finished 3-0 here in West Lothian as the home team from Midlothian prevailed over the visitors from England. Tweedmouth made zero use of the hurricane in the second half, albeit in fairness to them the wind has tapered off to just “blowy” now.

Did somebody sound the Where Will I Get Parked claxon? I’m here to help. The big parking news in Bonnyrigg this year is that Lothian Street is now double-yellow all the way from NDP to Texas. Unless you’re the owner of the white car always parked half over the pavement opposite Gigi’s, that means nae parking on Lothian Street or Big Kieran will clamp you. Because I think people from Peterhead who come to visit Bonnyrigg for a football game should be welcomed instead of told where not to stand and warned about their potty mouths, I’m going to give you an exclusive tip on where to find an abundance of parking a mere five minutes from the park: enter “type.risk.pizza” into what3words.com and you shall be granted parking nirvana. Enjoy your trip! (I won’t be there, you can fill me in after the game.)

Excellent! Always pleasing to see a rugby pitch upgraded to a football pitch like this. No random matches for me today, I’m overseas again (Islay!).

Putting an apologetic statement out excuses this?

I’m sceptical this can happen for a few reasons: 1) Civil engineering - flattening that surface is going to take a heck of a lot of redistributing soil about the ground to flatten the area, building retaining walls, drainage channels, reprofiling spectator areas, fixing lighting etc. Is it even feasible without paying silly money and leaving a serviceable spectator area behind? (I can imagine the corner at the Calderwood end would look like the old Tannadice corners which would be very retro and welcomed by me!) 2) Time - see above. Bonnyrigg are playing the last game of this season at home. Planning a major project like the above would have presumably seen a request to shift a few matches at end of this season and start of next season so it could be ready for next season? That doesn’t seem to be in the pipeline. 3) Money - the community club installed a new artificial pitch / lights / cage at the Poltonhall Hub not so long ago, presumably with a bit of grant funding chucked in and perhaps a bit of council support. Are any of these funding bodies going to provide funds for another project in Bonnyrigg so quickly? Can the football club fund such a project from their own reserves? I just wonder if it is feasible to make this happen without a massive vacant period at NDP (leading to ground sharing where?) and a massive benefactor to fund it. My suspicion is if this was really on their radar, the Poltonhall pitch would have been installed at NDP. But who knows, I was wrong about Gary, I was wrong about Clint, I might be wrong about this and Bonnyrigg shall be playing on a beautiful flat carpet awfae soon!

Population wise 2001-21: Bonnyrigg +27% Dalkeith +29% Penicuik +8% Rosewell +78% It’s official: Dalkeith is boomier than Boomtown Bonnyrigg, but Rosewell is boomier still.

Are these any more cringeworthy than Jam Tarts, Hibees, Killie, Dons, Buddies, Pars, Bairns, Spiders, Doonhamers, Wasps? (I could go on!) It’s just a nickname, it’s meaningless. I don’t know the derivation of Boomtown, but I do know it has been used in the town for 20 or more years.

CE? Must be a cowboy.

Is his name Gary?

As long as they put Gary O’Connor on the list, I’ll be happy.

Morningside? Close enough to Bonnyrigg, he’ll do. But I think Bonnyrigg really need Sargeant Thomson though?