You got him a belter there! Simon may miss the match tonight as he'll be too busy tending to his mortal wounds. Honestly, it is OK to be outed as a Lichtie fan. Once your family come to terms with it you will feel more comfortable: sing it now, "I am what I am."

For tonight's line-up; I'd tend to agree with 1320 with Flyer in the team. He's done pretty well all season and can offer a threat when he's up for having a run at the opposition. Also, (and again as 1320 suggests) I'd go wild and play Lunan, Sellars and Watson midfield. If they all play to something approximating their potential, that is probably the best midfield in the division by a long chalk. Just to indulge in a moment of original thinking, I would diverge from 1320's sugestion of playing Tully though.

It'll be a close game and my confidence levels hover around their customary 'very low' mark.

Aye, that sounds like my perfect midfield too!



Well, thats err, him, err, told now? So it would appear that far from being the perfect fan, when EF arent doing so well, you slope off and watch Arbroath instead?

Angus, has probably watched Arbroath more than you fat ass.

did you not read what he posted? East Fife weren't playing that day.

I very much doubt it. Plus if he had, thats not exactly going to put him in a good position regarding his loyalty...it appears that when things are going well(like this season), he goes to see EF, but when they arent top of the league, then he suddenly seems to prefer to go and watch Arbroath.

Textbook glory hunting fan.

That's right he is going to gloryhunt and watch... Arbroath. Maybe you should join a gym instead of worrying about other folk.

Why the personal abuse? Your team won the league, you should be happy. All that anger sloshing around the system can't be healthy.

You're approaching Savman legendary status, keep it up.

It's better than pints and pies sloshing around yours.

Disappointing to lose the goal when we'd Cowden hadn't threatened much before the pen, but in the end we were getting gubbed and were happy to get out with a draw.

Turning point was Scott Gates and Flyer coming on, the latter's first touch was to crack the post with a 20 yard drive (a great save) while the former ripped the latter apart for the last half hour.

Still completely open.

Quite an enjoyable game. I suspect that we might have been a bit more threatening if we hadnt been playing against the lashing rain, but never mind. No comments on the penalty, didnt see it properly, but it was better than Ive seen us play in ages!

Bit disappointed in our own fans though. I felt we were really on the players backs all through the match. Every time someone dared to misplace a pass, the abuse from the terracing was a bit OTT. Plus, in the second half, my wee brother overheard the guys behind me moaning about Bryan Scott, and how he had been having a 'mare all game and needed to come off. All fine and good, except for the fact he had only been on the pitch 2 minutes!

So pass marks to the players, and big enormous FAILS to some of the fans.

Not much comments about the game tonight, what's wrong with everyone? I was looking forward to reading about an exciting game with having to miss it because of work. 1-1 sets up the second leg nicely.

Typical BBC!
Usual high standard of coverage from the £150 licence fee people's website:

"Arbroath 1-1 Cowdenbeath
SFL

Arbroath and Cowdenbeath have it all to do again after the first leg of their Division Two play-off at Gayfield Park ended goalless."

First hour of the game Cowden were very poor and Arbroath were only slightly better. Arbroaths goal came from a very dodgy free kick. Guy smacked it off the wall and then smashed the rebound right into the bottom corner. Quality goal.

Cowden then woke up and dominated the rest of the game. It was a clear penalty - Dougie Hill contorls a throw, flicks it over his head and a defenders, cuts outside one defender, cuts inside another and is clipped. Dougie Hill celebrated winning the penalty like he had just scored the winner in the world cup final Well taken penalty from Scullion though.

Scott Gates was amazing when he came on. Always beating his man and his pace was electric. I am very confident if he plays on Saturday that lots of chances will be created!


Good Cowden support tonight - I am working this Saturday so will miss the game. Come on Cowden!!!

Sounds like if we start the game on Saturday like we finished tonight we're in with a shot. Why was Dougie subbed, hopefully not injured? Will make Saturday, so I'm happy with that

Dougie picked up cramp I think. Should be ok for Saturday. Dont think he wanted to come off but there was no point in risking him.


Meant to say before that Pat Scullion also had a superb game for Cowden. Won most of his headers, hit some great passes and shots and he had the balls to take the penalty.

If we play like we did in the last 25 odd minutes then I am confident we will scrape through.

Game was pretty boring until Arbroath scored then there was a big improvement.
Gates was different class when he came on and made the Arbroath defenders look slow.
At one point so many Arbroath players handled the ball in the box it looked like they were playing basketball -this seemed to totally confuse the referee. One of them even had to get treatment for damage to his wrist after stopping a shot.
Dougie appeared to be having problems with cramp before he went off - hope that's all it was. Another five star performancefrom him. I'm glad he didn't go off earlier.
I was worried before the game but now I'm a lot more confident.
Arbroath got some more additions to their 70yellow cards this season.

How is Dempster doing?

It looks like we may have got the better of the swap deal.

That's certainly left things very finely poised and Saturday could be a nailbiter to say the least.

There didn't look to be too much between the teams at all, with us just about shading it up until the moment Flyer cracked that shot off the post, and then falling out of the game almost completely therafter with Cowden dominating. We were kind of hanging on towards the end and I was fairly relieved when the referee blew for time.

I concur with those that highlighted the introduction of Gates and Flyer as being a turning point. The latter really was given a torrid time by the former.

Incidentally, in all my years of going to the football, I have never seen a team celebrating the awarding of a penalty as much as some of the Cowden players did tonight. I expressed my disaproval by shaking my head ruefully and tutting quite loudly.

RIP Albert Henderson. A true Arbroath FC Legend.

Agreed - it was bizarre! One of the Cowden players ran over to the fans, and I actually thought he was going to jump into the crowd and hug them as celebration! Would have been very amusing if they'd missed it!

Thought the game evened out over all, both sides had chances, and we had a few really good chances we were unlucky with. Cowden showing they certainly can play football and completely outplayed us for 20 minutes or so after they got the equaliser, but we did seem to settle it down in the last few minutes, and as I said overall a draw is about right.

Anything could happen on Saturday, bring it on

I think us losing Dougie Hill was a big part of Arbroath being able to settle down late on. I pray he is fit for Saturday!

What was the attendance tonight?

638 according to the BBC site. Really quite lousy.

Hopefully there will a decent crowd on Saturday. Still everything to play for. I'm sure Arbroath will have a decent support with it being a Saturday and it being 1-1. I'm sure a few neutrals will come along as well with the tie being nicely balanced.

I was quite suprised by the Arbroath support. Ok I know its a midweek game on a wet night while football is on the tv but there should have been more Arbroath fans!

Montrose Stranraer had a bigger crowd. SIMON, EXPLANATIONS???

Montrose against Stranraer had a bigger crowd than Arbroath against Cowdenbeath as more people chose to go to this match.

There is your explanation

Simon oh dear what happened to the win you were predicting earlier? Brain not in an altered state for this game?

Wow - how confident was I! Was a massive shock that we drew 1-1, gutted

Can I ask, why pick out me to ask about my prediction, and why did the other Montrose fan pick out me to ask about the crowd? Other people made predictions on the game, and almost all the other Lichties predicted us to win and were more confident than me, so why me?

Do you enjoy obsessing over me?

Well ya see it's those glasses that do it for me. I thought that someone mentioned that the Smokies would be a better game than the Mo game.

Well the crowd thing is self explanitory aint it? Its a famous SimonLichtie crowd wank!
You need a little help to get through the game?
Ya Cunt!!

C'Mon the Cooden - loadsa derbies between us you and the Beast Fife next season

Sorry Simon. Couldnae help it. Went on to text to get all the scores and it was glaring - Arbroath 600 odd, Montrose 700 odd.
I know you don't bother about crowds now because you don't post about it anymore.

Wow - you sound almost sensible in that Well done

We've been pish all season, and the last few months of results and shocking home performances really dont do good publicity for a play off game against Cowdenbeath. In saying that, I'd expect us to get 2000 at home and 1500 or so away if we got Montrose in the final. I dont think its likely we'll meet however, take from that what you want!

Do I not sound sensible mr simon sir? Where's my praise?
Ah I think the derby final would be good for the atmosphere as well as seeing simon running around town as I in my obbsesive manner chase him!
You can run simon but you can't hide!!

This worries me. You've already sent one of your hooligan Montrose flatmates to stalk me onto a train from Dundee to Edinburgh. A restraining order may be required here.

You shall get praise when you deserve it. Out of your 100 odd posts, none of them have deserved praise!

Sir this is slander. I'm no hooligan. Except for in your case where violence is almost certainly going to be in order next derby match. Then I will proceed to go and take out the entire inhabitants of the
Albert single handedly. Ah I think I deserve some praise surely you must accept that even as one of the enemy we aint bad lads And he wasn't stalking you it was like a documentary to see how the creatures from Broughty react when they meet civilisation...As we all have heard many a time that you spend much of your time between Dundee and Arbroath, this alone shows god was having a bad day when he made you!

Absolutely dire first-half performance when we made Arbroath look a better side than they really are. But what a transformation after Scott Gates came on when their defence was running about like a bunch of headless chickens. Having achieved the first part of the objective by coming back from Gayfield without losing we need to start where we left off and finish the job on Saturday.

Match report from AFTN:

Well. Having pruned the wife's bush after weeks of nagging, it was down to Gayfield for the play-off Semi-Final. After a tea of Lasagne and oven chips (a uniquely Scottish "combo") I stopped off at the Abbey Inn and ordered a pint of McEwans 80. The pre-match build up on Sky (TV) for the other Semi-Final had me temporarily in a swither as the sky (ootside) had darkened and the aforementioned pint was going down a treat.
I headed off for the game. Mr Jimmy Neutral.
Cowden arenae the biggest team in the world. I can live with that, having been brought up in coal mining country myself a bit of empathy was creeping through my rain-soaked bones.
The first-half was pretty even, even pretty pretty with both sides adopting a short ball game. Half-time nothings up with everything to play for.
It all kinda kicked off not long after the restart. The referee awarded Arbroath a softish free-kick 25 yards out. The first effort from the left footed midfielder could not have been worse as he drove it straight at the wall, the second strike on the rebound was an absolute peach which curled just inside the arbroath keeper's left hand post.
The Blue Brazil, smitten by Smokie sodomy, came out all guns blazing, looking for the equaliser. Arbroath, struggling to keep afloat, succumbed with around 20 minutes to play. the unlikely provider being the big Centre -Half who showed a deft touch and shimmy in his opponents' penalty box. Well, enough of a deft touch and shimmy to invite a clumsy challenge.
Despite the protests of the Lichtie defenders and fans (120 yards away) I can confirm that this was the proverbial stonewaller.
Arbroath 1 Cowdenbeath 1.
All that remained was the rather predictable spectacle of "carnage" in Lichtieland on the way up the road. Apparently there had been another game on tonight...

good result last night. we didnt play that well in the first half.Arbroath showed not a hell of a lot to be honest - so if we are to pick up our performance i see no reason why we cant beat them on saturday.
naturally the introduction of Gates made a massive difference.However praise must go to welshy as he changed the formation when we were 1-0 down. He went with 1 lone striker with 2 wingers pushed up - this in turn created loads of space for Tomana/scullion/oneill from there we were able to knock the ball about left to right.

Gates was fantastic when he came on though. Dougie Hill was simply immense and anyone that says cowden over rate him are just plain stupid. He strolled through the game and was best player on the park IMO.

arbroath are a massive team and my only concern would be that they launch high balls into the box more regularly than they did last night.

Just a question has there ever been a smaller starting x1 than cowdens last night? Only players 6ft or over was davie hay our GK and Scullion.

mone the cowden

1st half we were poor with no real scoring opportunities. Arbroath had a few half chances but nothing really to bother the cat in goal.

Their goal came from a free kick when Dougie was adjudged to have fouled an Arbroath player. Didn't look much, however I couldn't get a great view from the terrace facing the main stand.

Arbroath almost went two up, but again the cat saved us tipping the almost certain goal onto the post.

The last 1/2 hour belonged to Cowden and we looked the only team going to win. Their goalie had a great save from Marek, then Dougie (who looked to have played for the pen) but was tripped won us the penalty. Well don to Pat for keeping his cool .

Gates (who was immense when he came on) saw a lob narrowly go over, we had a few other half chances but couldn't find the winner.

This game is by no means over, but hopefully we'll have enough to see us through.

Once again Dougie and Davey were outstanding - where would we be without them?

Two pish teams playing pish football in pish weather.
Thought Cowden were very average and should have been
2 down at half time.
good come back in the 2nd half tho as we just fell away and let cowden
take control.

Don't expect a large AFC support on Saturday..

so did i , 638 is appaling and below our average in the league this year

Anyway to the game , i thought by half time it shood have been over with us missing at least 4 good chances , brazil when the keeper lost it, brazil when he had a volley from 6 yards out , brazil when he could have just slid into it for a goal and lunans one on one were he shood have just hit it first time , 1 also cleared off the line 1st half aswell.

2nd half was much different,ok up until flyer crakd the post which would hev sent us 2-0 up and looking good after watsons terrific volley, but the rain and wind started lashing down towards our goal meaning even Hills bionic leg couldnt kick us out of our own half meaning everything just came bak at us for the last 20 mins , and after the penalty i was glad the game finished 1-1 as they clearly had all the momentum and the extra push that the wind and the rain gave them.Anyway no what was wrong with Scotty last night looked very lazy and tired and slower than he usually is.

Anyway all to play for on saturday which will be a nailbiter , but at least we always seem to play better away from home and away from the moaners

MON THE LICHTIES

At least Arbroath don't appear to fiddle the crowd figures. It's well-known that Montrose always add a few hundred on to the crowd. No-one can explain (Brechin do this too but not to the same extent) It would make more sense to take a few hundred off!
Anyway the weather at Arbroath was horrendous last nght - does the wind ever not blow like that? We had everything driving rain, hailstones, freezing cold and there were locals wandering about with T-shirts on! So the crowd might only have been 600odd but that looked like a genuine number.

Tell Dougie to get on the Bananas. Great for boosting the Potassium levels and preventing cramp!
Good luck on Saturday.

It was an below average match lastnite, thought Arbroath looked the most hungriest and determined team out there lastnite until we scored the penalty, after that was mostly Cowden.

Dougie Hill was motm until he had to go off due to cram kicking in, had to laugh at Arbroath support slamming him for time wasting, wasnt that when your own team was at it at least twice when u's were 1-0 up was it guys

Thought the ref was very poor, was too far off the play most of the match, blood boiled when he gave arbroath the free kick that lead to their goal (was a long ball forward, dougie hill and their player chased the ball with the arbroath player chasing behind and was pushing and pulling at Dougie) not to count the numerous arms around the neck at going for headers and pushing that the ref missed, he also missed two handballs in the same sequence of play right at the end in the Arbroath box wich he was standing no more than 6 yards from.

Dougie did well to try andbreak down the arbroath defence when he ran from just inside arbroath's half beating a few men where he was brought to a halt inside the box, no question it was a penalty and Pat Scullion buried it

So all to play for, Arbroath have had better results away from home while we have only won twice at home in 16 matches, but its a 1 off game so not looking to much into form, would just like to see the midfield pushing on when were on attack and to also get more body's in the box.

If we do get through, would prefer to face Montrose, dont fancy our chances against Stranraer.

C'mon the Coo!

He has played 13 games scoring 5, missed a few games through injury and has not featured recently, hopefully get him back for play offs should we get past Arbroath on sat.

Deffo as it stands just now you have got the best of the deal, i liked Scotty, didnt score many goals but worked hard when he played.

dempster will turn out to be a better signing i think.Although not scored many 5 in 13. it aint bad considering our whole team aint exactly scoring many. He aint been fit and it shows. With a pre-season and injury free i think he would be one of our main men.
agree about scott dalziel also. I liked him it just didnt happen for him in the games he started.

Opposite from the Blue Brasilian if we got through id rather play Starnraer than Montrose , even though Starnraer are above montrose in the table montrose in my view are the better team , and weve not been beet by Stranraer all season so them in the final would be perfect , plaus the 2nd leg of it is in stranraer and what a good 6 hour bus journey home that wood be if we won Anyway cant wit for saturday now MON THE LICHTIES

Agree with you mate, once he gets pre-season behind him and is fit think he will score quite a few goals, got faith it will be in division 2