Elgin V Rovers midweek

[David W]

I'll guess: red card for "unsporting behaviour" not a two game ban whereas "violent conduct" is?

Yes.

[JasonElgin]

Report about the game from an Elgin Point of view taken from the message board.

Well, that's the first one of the eight played, as mentioned in another post, and things do not look good. But when your strikers are firing blanks and your defence is gifting the opposition a couple of goals as well,then you really don't stand a chance. In all honesty, in my opinion Albion Rovers were a very good team. They have a solid defence and their midfield and forwards break very quickly once they have the ball. But they were made to look extra special by a lack lustre City team who, at the moment are extremely low on spirit and confidence.

From Saturday's team, Darryl McHardy and Daniel Moore were left out and Bev and Dennis Wyness came in to the team. Albion started the game well and took the lead after 5 mins when an Alan Reid cross was headed home by the smallest player on the park Scott Chaplain. Black marks to the City defence for falling asleep so early in the game. Denis Wyness had a great chance minutes later when a cross came in from Archie McPhee. Unfortunately for us his header went straight to the Albion keeper. Really should have scored Dennis. Worse was to follow minutes later. An Albion corner was very weakly palmed out by Mikey Fraser. It didn't even clear the penalty area and Albion's number 6 Dunlop attempted to fire in the rebound. The ball took a wicked deflection and very slowly lobbed over the keepers head and into our goal. Black mark to keeper for a useless attempt to clear the cross. My opinion again - if a keeper doesn't want to hold a cross and elects to punch it, then the ball should be landing well outside his penalty area. City then had a reasonable spell of pressure and the Albion keeper had a couple of great saves from Gordy Finlayson and Dennis Wyness. But still a goal would not come. A goal did come however at the other end and this time it was all down to Matthew Cooper. As the last man he simply had to get it away anywhere, but he elected to try and play his way out of trouble. He lost possession to Scott Chaplain who went on to place the ball past Mikey Fraser. So 3-0 down with 2 goals gifted by the City defence and an extremely unlucky deflected goal. Could things get any worse in the second half? Surely not!!!!!!!

Much to our surprise there were no changes made at half time, with the same eleven given the job of salvaging something from the game. 5 minutes into the second half and our fate was sealed. A corner to Elgin was headed down by Marvin and Gunny sent in a shot which came back off the crossbar. Our luck was completely out. And 6 mins later Albion made it four. An Albion corner was headed clear by Marvin but the waiting Gary Phillips from about 25 yards out, swung a leg at it and his shot beat Mikey Fraser at his right hand post. I thought our keeper could have done better. At this point I thought Albion took their foot off the gas. They were quite happy to pass the ball about and do the occasional bit of showboating. City did try to take advantage of their casual play and get some sort of consolation. But the heart had been knocked out of them some time back.

A very strange game of football with City having 54% possession against Albion's 46%. We had 16 shots against their 6 and 13 corners against their 5. We committed 3 fouls to their 9. So you say to yourself how did we get beat 4-0. Well they were clinical - we were'nt: we committed mistakes - they did'nt. They were very competitive - we were'nt.

[Blue-Toon]

3 fouls committed by one team in a game must be some sort of record low. BTW Peterhead committed 18 fouls against Stranraer which is about average for us.

[Compliment Sandwich]

Report about the game from an Elgin Point of view taken from the message board.

Well, that's the first one of the eight played, as mentioned in another post, and things do not look good. But when your strikers are firing blanks and your defence is gifting the opposition a couple of goals as well,then you really don't stand a chance. In all honesty, in my opinion Albion Rovers were a very good team. They have a solid defence and their midfield and forwards break very quickly once they have the ball. But they were made to look extra special by a lack lustre City team who, at the moment are extremely low on spirit and confidence.

From Saturday's team, Darryl McHardy and Daniel Moore were left out and Bev and Dennis Wyness came in to the team. Albion started the game well and took the lead after 5 mins when an Alan Reid cross was headed home by the smallest player on the park Scott Chaplain. Black marks to the City defence for falling asleep so early in the game. Denis Wyness had a great chance minutes later when a cross came in from Archie McPhee. Unfortunately for us his header went straight to the Albion keeper. Really should have scored Dennis. Worse was to follow minutes later. An Albion corner was very weakly palmed out by Mikey Fraser. It didn't even clear the penalty area and Albion's number 6 Dunlop attempted to fire in the rebound. The ball took a wicked deflection and very slowly lobbed over the keepers head and into our goal. Black mark to keeper for a useless attempt to clear the cross. My opinion again - if a keeper doesn't want to hold a cross and elects to punch it, then the ball should be landing well outside his penalty area. City then had a reasonable spell of pressure and the Albion keeper had a couple of great saves from Gordy Finlayson and Dennis Wyness. But still a goal would not come. A goal did come however at the other end and this time it was all down to Matthew Cooper. As the last man he simply had to get it away anywhere, but he elected to try and play his way out of trouble. He lost possession to Scott Chaplain who went on to place the ball past Mikey Fraser. So 3-0 down with 2 goals gifted by the City defence and an extremely unlucky deflected goal. Could things get any worse in the second half? Surely not!!!!!!!

Much to our surprise there were no changes made at half time, with the same eleven given the job of salvaging something from the game. 5 minutes into the second half and our fate was sealed. A corner to Elgin was headed down by Marvin and Gunny sent in a shot which came back off the crossbar. Our luck was completely out. And 6 mins later Albion made it four. An Albion corner was headed clear by Marvin but the waiting Gary Phillips from about 25 yards out, swung a leg at it and his shot beat Mikey Fraser at his right hand post. I thought our keeper could have done better. At this point I thought Albion took their foot off the gas. They were quite happy to pass the ball about and do the occasional bit of showboating. City did try to take advantage of their casual play and get some sort of consolation. But the heart had been knocked out of them some time back.

A very strange game of football with City having 54% possession against Albion's 46%. We had 16 shots against their 6 and 13 corners against their 5. We committed 3 fouls to their 9. So you say to yourself how did we get beat 4-0. Well they were clinical - we were'nt: we committed mistakes - they did'nt. They were very competitive - we were'nt.

Great write up.

All I would add from a Rovers perspective is that I thought we were excellent again and it was a very good team performance with everyone looking hungry and keen to get involved. Elgin aided the goals, but clinical is the best word to describe our performance. I think we only had five shots on target - 4 ended up in the net and the other forced the keeper into a great save from Alan Reid's long range effort. There were times where we were knocking the ball around for 20 consecutive passes, and never looked in danger after the second went in.

It's not often you win 0-4 and say your keeper is MOTM, but Neil Parry was outstanding last night. The game could have been very different if he hadn't made two terrific saves at 0-1 and another two top saves later on as well. More than that though, he commanded his area excellently and made the right decisions every single time.

Think the Rovers competitiveness was summed up at 0-4 with 5 mins to go when Mick Dunlop and John Gemmill were having a go at each other over a nondescript mix up. Good to see that kind of attitude, which was forgotten about when they embraced at the final whistle.

Fair play to the 10 or so other Rovers fans who travelled from Coatbridge.

[Aloysius Snuffleupagus]

Great write up.

All I would add from a Rovers perspective is that I thought we were excellent again and it was a very good team performance with everyone looking hungry and keen to get involved. Elgin aided the goals, but clinical is the best word to describe our performance. I think we only had five shots on target - 4 ended up in the net and the other forced the keeper into a great save from Alan Reid's long range effort. There were times where we were knocking the ball around for 20 consecutive passes, and never looked in danger after the second went in.

It's not often you win 0-4 and say your keeper is MOTM, but Neil Parry was outstanding last night. The game could have been very different if he hadn't made two terrific saves at 0-1 and another two top saves later on as well. More than that though, he commanded his area excellently and made the right decisions every single time.

Think the Rovers competitiveness was summed up at 0-4 with 5 mins to go when Mick Dunlop and John Gemmill were having a go at each other over a nondescript mix up. Good to see that kind of attitude, which was forgotten about when they embraced at the final whistle.

Fair play to the 10 or so other Rovers fans who travelled from Coatbridge.

Good summation, as always, Mr Sandwich.

Fair play to you for going along too: Aberdeen to Elgin isn't exactly round the corner.

[Hampden Diehard]

Spfl have to look at those midweek fixtures

Horrible for teams and fans

266 at Stranrear and 566 at elgin

No point

Is this midweek because Elgin and Forres (10 miles apart) decided to have their Cup replay on a Saturday? If so, it's utter nonsense.

[The Pastmaster]

Is this midweek because Elgin and Forres (10 miles apart) decided to have their Cup replay on a Saturday? If so, it's utter nonsense.

Exactly ! Yes the Elgin v Rovers league match had to give way to the cup replay.

[Bold Rover]

Presumably Elgin and Forres exercised that option ice to play on the Saturday forcing the Rovers game into a midweek? I'm not sure the SPFL are totally to blame, in which case - thanks City.

[Albino Rover]

I'd guess that Forres couldn't host a midweek replay because they're not capable of playing evening games. As far as I know that's legal, and no fault of Elgin or the SPFL fixture compilers.

[The Pastmaster]

They certainly host HFL league matches midweek so lights doesn`t appear to be the problem

[1320Lichtie]

They certainly host HFL league matches midweek so lights doesn`t appear to be the problem

In the winter?

[Convenor]

The way Elgin are performing this season, would it make any difference if they played in the dark?

[BullyWeeLad]

Rovers 1-3 Elgin

[Bold Rover]

Rovers 1-3 Elgin

Well Rovers won is correct.

[Hampden Diehard]

Exactly ! Yes the Elgin v Rovers league match had to give way to the cup replay.

Wonder if Elgin would have plumped for the Saturday replay if their outstanding fixture was at Coatbridge rather than at home? I'd hazard a guess that they wouldn't.

[QPSAFalkirkFirm]

At least the ticket allocations were handled properly. Tragic if the Elite Rovers Travel Club went all that way and were locked out

[ShawfieldAggro]

The subject of the Cup replays.....what exactly is the basic requirement for obtaining the licence to play in the Cup??? Turriff certainly had lights....and i'd wager the majority of HL sides will too. As far as i can remember, Cup ties took priority, which is fine...but surely that would be 'next available date'....which would fall the immediate midweek. Obviously a different story if you end up with multiple postponements followed by a replay which must be played asap....which i thought was part of the reason the rounds were brought forward a couple of months, as the first and second rounds back in the good old days were generally played in November and December or even the first weekend in January...as our last visit to Spartans was. The fact these are part time footballers, who probably had to take two days off to play that match (same for Peterheed at Stranraer...how soul destroying for anyone based near the club when you join the 73 and still have four hours to go) seems lost on the eejits in charge....fair play to those who went in support, but having witnessed Elgin's numbers last week, would many more have travelled on the Saturday???

[Albino Rover]

Would disgruntled fans have preferred Forres to be forced to hold their replay on a weekday afternoon?

[The Pastmaster]

Why a weekday afternoon ? - they have played HFL matches at home in late September with a 8pm KO

[Albino Rover]

Having just looked it up, Mosset Park has floodlights. Nevertheless, it's right that they be entitled to play their replay on a Saturday at this stage in the Cup- otherwise clubs without lights would be forced to play their replays on weekday afternoons.