Albion Rovers FC: Season 2016 - 2017

[Snakebite]

Aye Joao Victoria was excellent today. Definitely benefitted from stepping down for a bit.

[The Pastmaster]

Thanks for the comments guys!

[sam2304]

Typical pre season encounter yesterday, lots of tired legs and practically a full new Rovers line-up still in the process of gelling together. However the game was there to be won.

I arrived late so missed the line up announcements and couldn't see any team sheets anywhere. I only recognised from last season the very tanned Gary Fisher who with his newly highlighted hair captained the side wearing the number 7 shirt, and Ross Davidson who wore the number 8 shirt. Connor Shields came on as a substitute in the second half and last seasons sub keeper young Daniel Potts was brought on for the last 5 minutes which I gather is his first appearance for the first team? I recognised a few of the boys from last seasons under 20's on the bench, the rest of the team must be made up of new signings. Graeme Holmes must have been wearing the number 6 jersey due to the cries of "Holmer" every time he got the ball.

As I was slightly late I arrived just at the restart from Joao Victoria's opening for Rovers so I don't know anything about it. The game was going at a decent tempo, Clyde looked decent enough in the first half, they equalised after 17 minutes, a corner came in and the Rovers defence was caught napping and David Goodwillie had an easy header into the net. Not much else of note in the first half and the teams went in level at the break.

The second half started off the same way the first half had ended but as Clyde began to make substitutions (mainly trialists according to their P&B thread) they started to fall behind a bit. Victoria took his second goal well, picking up a pass just outside the box and rifling the ball into the bottom right hand corner. Indeed the big man could have scored another twice before he was subbed off, first a shot which went inches wide of the post and then after working his way past several Clyde players in the box he fired over the bar with just the keeper to beat. However he has a good afternoon and looked comfortable with the ball at his feet and was looking to bring other players into the game.

So off to a winning start [emoji5]

[an86]

I remember Joao looking like a pre-season superstar for us. He was very good in the reserves, but never quite hit the heights in the first team. He probably wasn't helped by the fact that it was the worst Queen's Park team in history. He'll have more experience under his belt now and it'll be interesting to see how he does. An absolute cert to score against us.