LeedsPhil

My neutral's choice of match today, at McKenna Park. I have to agree with Tinsel's good summary - an entertaining game. And what a swing from 0-2 (39min & 42min) at HT to 3-2 in a 7-minute spell ! 47min 1-2 52min second yellow for Knightswood's number 14. 53min 2-2 54min 3-2 and then 4-2 on 79. I was told by a Glenvale club official that the works at Ferguslie Park (changing rooms building improvement) will take until August.

So St Peter's are carrying on.

Hurlford Utd not taking a risk on Blair Park potentially being unplayable. The home WoS Cup R4 match v Cumbernauld Utd will be played at New Western Park (3G), Renfrew, since it has suddenly become free...

St Peter's v Glenvale "cancelled" (rather than PPd). But nothing to do with the weather!

table as it is now (Friday afternoon 15th March) and what it would be if St Peter's results were to be expunged. Biggest loser would be Rossvale, dropping from 3rd to 5th, their 6-2 and 2-1 wins over St Peter's disappearing.

St Peter's home derby v Glenvale also now "cancelled" not just PPd. I think think we've seen the last of them. Get ready to re-calculate the table with all their results expunged. Any wonder the WoSFL now only wants to listen to applications from proper established Amateur clubs. Hurlford United have already nipped-in to get use of the New Western Park plastic tomorrow, expecting their grass park to be unplayable.

WoSFL website's fixtures page says Johnstone Burgh's midweek Home fixtures on Wed 27 March (v Thorniewood) and Wed 3 April (v Cambuslang) will be played at CLIFTONHILL !! (Albion Rovers). Eh?!!! Seems a long way to go for a ground to use as Home on a dark evening. New Western Park (Renfrew) has usually been the go-to when lights are needed, hasn't it?

St Peter's home loss last Saturday, realistically ended their chance of making it into the promotion places out of this bottom division. So then the following Saturday, they do this...

because I'm an obsessive - a Saturday without attending football just isn't right, so I had to at least try.

From up in Aberdeenshire, the Paties Road derby would have been my target match day out today but unsurprisingly that grass pitch was an early call off. But with this one at Ochilview still showing as ON at 11am I got on a series of trains to Larbert. Call off was only announced at 12:25, by which stage I carried on and completed my journey anyway. Very thick snow in the countryside between Perth & Stirling, but from Larbert station walking up to the ground pavements were just wet, lawns were visible, and grass verges soft. Nobody there and all locked up of course. You can see the 3G pitch through cracks in the gates though. Only the very lightest of dustings! With all lines perfectly visible. Pathetic that this artificial pitch was deemed unplayable - it seems that that light dusting wasn't the only 'snowflake'... A good pint of real ale in the Station Hotel at Larbert before the long journey back, with a flooded line up my way meaning having to squeeze on a very full bus for the last leg of a frustrating day.

I was told when I attended the only proper match* that has been played at the new ground in Kirkintilloch that it was expressly because KRR hadn't put a penny towards it that the cooncil are going out of thier way to give KRR the cold shoulder. The person telling me that could have got his facts wrong of course, but that's what I was told... * Saturday 7th October 2023, used by Rossvale to play Darvel in the Junior Cup R2 (1-4), because Rossvale's sharers West Park United also had a home game that afternoon so were occupying Huntershill.

Greenock Juniors v Glenafton Athletic R2 replay now Wednesday 18th October 8pm, rather than on R3 Saturday.

Knightswood haven't had a home game for a month. Coincidence, or intentional?, because : Their next 4 home fixtures are all listed as at the North Kelvinside Primary School 3G, where they also had to play a couple of games early in the season. So currently they've not got a game at Scotstoun outside 3G until 9th December. Adding 2 & 2 together, is it that there are improvement works going on at the Scotstoun outside 3G ? ...or is it just that someone else has got it priority booked until December?

Due Saturday 14th October. But so is the SPFL Trust Trophy, so 'Shire v Caledonian Braves would have to move day (probably to the Friday night) unless Falkirk v Queens Park gets picked to be a Trust Trophy telly game thus getting shifted off the Saturday anyway. And both Guy's Meadow sharers got a Home draw.. So I'd expect Cumbernauld United v Forth Wanderers to get the Saturday usage, with Kirkintilloch Rob Roy v Hurlford United getting bumped to the Sunday.

Typo. It's 660. That's the capacity of the away seated area behind the goal. No point them restricting the allocation to 5% of the (reduced, seats-only) capacity of the ground, when they might as well give the whole of the section.

Knightswood's first was at Scotstoun, but the WoSFL fixtures page is saying that their next 2 (Saturday 5th and Monday 14th August) are at North Kelvinside Primary School - 3G cage visible from Maryhill Road, opposite the Esso petrol station, before then returning to Scotstoun.

Nearly! It is indeed not at Killie, but at Broadwood on the Friday night. That's not Clyde's home ground any longer though...

Surely on Killie's plastic yet again. Where it has been for the past decade, except the 2 covid-affected seasons when there were no Junior Cup Finals, and the one year (2019) when Rugby Park was unavailable because they were replacing the plastic, so it was on Hamilton Accies' plastic that year.

CP are 3 points behind already-finished (in more than one sense...) Harmony Row, with a g.d. that is 2 worse. So an awarded 3-0 means CP would avoid finishing bottom, by the margin of just one g.d. ! Not that it matters of course, with no relegation.

Campbeltown Pupils v Thorn Athletic due Saturday 22nd April, would have been the last match of the season for both. But the WoSFL has already (Monday) told CP that Thorn Athletic can't raise a side for Saturday, so it has been declared "cancelled" (not "PPd"). Hmmm... Thorn Athletic can't get into the promotion places. Last match of the season is the longest away trip of the season. And suddenly they know 5 days in advance that they can't raise an XI... Unless everybody is down with covid so is out of circulation, this smells awfully like a simple dose of CBA with the trek. I hope that my scepticism is misplaced and there is a genuine reason for this. Otherwise it makes you wonder why they asked to come up to Senior football rather than just remaining in the amateurs...

The pitch at Knockburn Sports Loch, outside Banchory, is used for Aberdeenshire Amateurs matches and the Mid-Deeside summer league. It's within a triathlon training and competition complex, so as you're trying to watch a match there are athletes cycling and running on the tarmacked route alongside, and open-water swimming in the man-made lake behind the goal. It was dreich in the first half. "Rather them than me", I thought about the swimmers in the freezing loch. But then the rain stopped, The sun came out ...and so did the midges. I suddenly saw the attraction of going and jumping in the loch - to get away from the pesky biters!

RAF Lossiemouth (Moray Welfare summer football) play inside the military base. You have to have special permission to attend as a spectator, and be met at the gatehouse by your host who escorts you past the fighter jets to get to the pitch.

The far side at Carluke is a field that rises and rises and rises, overshadowing the ground. When I've done a headcount at games I've seen there, there's more cows on that bank watching the match than there are spectators.

The pitch at Newburgh (Aberdeenshire version) is tucked-in down the side of a golf fairway. Each time I've attended a game there, I'm nervous whether a stray drive is gonna mean a golf ball clonks me on the head.

The Stanks at Berwick is a pitch two sides of which are tight against the historic city walls. There's a charity tournament held there each year. Watching the Final from up the top of the walls was not good for my vertigo. At least they don't have to go fetch the ball back when they shoot wide!