COWDENBEATH 2019-20

[Aberdeen Cowden]

Hamilton was a standout for the Scotland youngsters when they beat Germany recently. Not worried about him at all, haven’t seem him having a bad game. As for Smith, who does look a very good prospect, he gets bossed about by defenders, this has come a season too early. I’d love to seem him back next year.

[PELE]

5 hours ago, Aberdeen Cowden said:

Hamilton was a standout for the Scotland youngsters when they beat Germany recently. Not worried about him at all, haven’t seem him having a bad game. As for Smith, who does look a very good prospect, he gets bossed about by defenders, this has come a season too early. I’d love to seem him back next year.

Smith has been a bit stronger in challenges recently, but as has been said, he is only 17 and can get stronger. He helps create something out of nothing and just has to improve his final ball.

[The Minertaur]

As we approach the end of 2019 I thought it might be quite interesting to take a look back at the last decade and the key moments from it.  In Scottish football I'd be amazed if a team has had a more interesting decade than us - it began with a play off promotion and we've since had 3 relegations, a title winning season and 2 nerve wracking play off survivals.  Will try and put in old highlights if I find any but the earlier posts will obviously be limited!

2009/10

Preparing for life in Division 3 after missing out on promotion at Ochilview in a penalty shoot out.  Danny Lennon had assembled a decent looking squad for a title push.  In goals we had the ever reliable Davie Hay with a defence normally consisting of Mark Baxter, Joe Mbu, John Armstrong and Kenny Adamson ahead of Hay.  Midfield? Darren McGregor, Craig Winter, Scott McBride, Jay Stein and Jon Robertson featured heavily while Brian Fairbairn was a regular source of chances for Gareth Wardlaw, John Dempster and Paul McQuade. 

On the 25th of July we kicked off our season with a tough away Alba Challenge Cup tie up in Peterhead.  Martin Bavidge opened the scoring for the home team but 2nd half strikes from Scott McBride and Paul McQuade saw us get through to the next round. League was due to start shortly after:

Livingston were demoted down to the 3rd Division and we were moved up to Division 2 with just days to go before the league season started!

Unsurprisingly the league season didn't start well with us not winning any of our opening 4 games.  However a narrow 1-0 win over Clyde got us our first 3 points of the season before we travelled to Dumbarton.  

An excellent 20th birthday for me that day!

In between all these games we were knocked out of the League and Challenge Cup. Morton beat us 3-1 and Dundee beat us 3-0 with both games at Central Park.

A 2-1 loss against Stirling came before an incredible 11 match unbeaten run but there was a significant problem.  From the 16th of December until the 15nd of January we didn't play a single league game due to postponements creating a huge fixture back log.   A 2-1 win over Stenhousemuir on the 15th of December was our only win until a 6-2 thumped of East Fife at Central Park in MARCH.

However we pushed our way into a title race with Alloa and Stirling Albion. Disaster was to strike in April with a defeat in Peterhead, draw in Arbroath and a 3-3 draw away to Brechin where we had been leading 3-0 after half an hour.  At this point we were 7 points behind Alloa who we hadn't beaten in 3 previous league games and 2 Scottish cup clashes.

The season all came down to a midweek clash at Central Park against Stirling Albion.   An away win would see Stirling win the league while a win for us would put us just 2 points behind with a game to go. Alloa were 1 point behind Stirling.

What do you know?  We run into a 3 goal lead in a stunning first half display only to somehow throw it all away and collapse to a 3-3 draw and kill off our title hopes.  With 87 minutes played we lead 3-1 before Iain Russell and Andy Graham struck.

We then faced Alloa on the last day of the season with them knowing a win against us may not be enough to win the title.  They won 3-1 with all their goals coming in the final 17 minutes but it wasn't enough to win the league. 

6 games against Alloa that season and we'd not won any.  Who did we face in the play off semi finals?

I'll discuss the play offs in more detail in a later post.

League season best bits:

Cowdenbeath 6 v 2 East Fife. 
1 nil to us at half time and then we scored 5 goals in 17 minutes!

Cowdenbeath 2 v 1 Stenhousemuir - Brian Fairbairns goal
Does anybody else remember the slowed down replay on the Stenny highlights? Our opening goal was scored by Brian Fairbairn when he stopped a goal bound shot from Jon Robertson on the line before tapping in.  He was literally the most westerly player on the pitch when Robbo shot. He was actually beyond their keeper.

"THAAAAAAAATS OFFSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE" is my favourite ever sound clip from being a Cowden fan.  If anybody can find that footage then I owe you.

Cowdenbeath 5 v 0 Peterhead 
Just an incredible performance with McQuade and Wardlaw both scoring braces.

Our kit?

What's your memories of the season? How good would that team have been if we'd kept it all together?

Edited November 19, 2019 by The Minertaur

[The Minertaur]

Play Off Semi Final

22nd August - Cowdenbeath 1 v 1 Alloa
28th November - Cowdenbeath 0 v 0 Alloa
8th December - Alloa 1 v 0 Cowdenbeath
9th February - Alloa 2 v 1 Cowdenbeath
16th March - Cowdenbeath 1 v 1 Alloa
1st May - Alloa 3 v 1 Cowdenbeath

Not good reading when you go into a 2 legged play off...

The first leg was at Central Park and we lined up:

Hay, Baxter, Adamson, Mbu, Linton, Ramsay, McGregor, Robertson, McBride, Wardlaw, McQuade.
Subs: Wilson, Brett. Fairbairn, Stein, Dempster

A crowd of 578 were at Central Park and there was probably nobody surprised when Alloa took the lead early on.  Prunty slipped the ball through to David Gormley and he lashed the ball past Davie Hay after just 16 minutes. The game looked to be finishing with just the single goal until stoppage time.  Dempster came on for McQuade and made an immediate impact by getting on the end of Mark Baxters cross to equalise with almost the last touch of the game. 

Danny Lennon admitted that it was last chance saloon for us when he brought John on:

Quote

"I took a bit of a chance but John was right in there from the moment he came on and the next thing was the ball was in the back of the net."

7 games between the sides. 4 draws and 3 defeats. 

2nd leg

Hay, Armstrong, Mbu, Baxter, Adamson, Fairbairn, Winter, McGregor, McBride, Wardlaw, McQuade.
Subs: Wilson, Stein, Robertson, Ramsay, Dempster.

0-0 at half time in the EIGHTH meeting between the 2 sides in a season. Tension was building.  The opening goal would prove crucial and it duly arrived in the 59th minute - Gareth Wardlaw was picked out by Scott McBride and he kept his cool to fire past David Crawford in the Alloa goal.  A killer 2nd came with just 8 minutes remaining - Wardlaw this time setting up McQuade to make it 3-1 on aggregate and take us through to the final against Brechin City.

The Final 

A home leg against Brechin to start. The league meetings had seen 1 win, 2 draws and a defeat so it was going to be a tight couple of games and it was no surprise when the first leg finished 0-0.  The game was live on BBC Alba and I'd be surprised if it attracted many people to watch further matches!

Hay, Armstrong , Linton, McGregor, Baxter, Mbu, Winter, McQuade, Fairbairn, Wardlaw, McBride.
Subs : Wilson, Ramsay, Robertson, Stein, Dempster.

1627 people were at Glebe Park and the Cowdenbeath fans had taken over the hedge side of the ground thanks to the efforts of Stuart Juner and others to get fans into the ground early.  

How did the first half go?

Scott McBride swung in an early corner and glorious Joe Mbu headered it home with the ball sneaking in at the far post. 

Soon Paul McQuade had a chance to score but was denied by David Scott - thankfully the ball looped straight to Gareth Wardlaw to fire home. 

Then right on half time McBride swung in a beauty of a cross from the left wing which Wardlaw headered home. 

Memories of a 3-0 collapse in the league a few previously at Glebe Park as well as against Stirling Albion meant that no Cowden player took the 2nd half easy.  Brechin had a couple of half chances but Cowden held out and won 3-0 to get us promotion to Division 1.

Still my one and only pitch invasion. 

https://www.snsgroup.co.uk/16-05-10-brechin-v-cowdenbeath - more photos here but here are some of the best ones:

I have vague memories of a party in Cowdenbeath that night....

[CowdenLoyal]

I'd forgot about that Stirling Albion game until reading that. We were absolutely outstanding the first half. Everyone including the players thought it was job done. Their comeback was mental and I'm not sure I've ever left a game so confused.

One thing that our successful teams oozed was character - I include our promotion winning wide in 2000 in that as well.

Cheers for your efforts. Hoping for some more footage makes it here as well. Did nobody get Jordan Morton's goal v East Fife?

[Aberdeen Cowden]

3 minutes ago, CowdenLoyal said:

I'd forgot about that Stirling Albion game until reading that. We were absolutely outstanding the first half. Everyone including the players thought it was job done. Their comeback was mental and I'm not sure I've ever left a game so confused.

One thing that our successful teams oozed was character - I include our promotion winning wide in 2000 in that as well.

Cheers for your efforts. Hoping for some more footage makes it here as well. Did nobody get Jordan Morton's goal v East Fife?

Morton’s goal will live in my memory forever. Even the East Fife fans applauded that one.

[The Minertaur]

1 hour ago, CowdenLoyal said:

Cheers for your efforts. Hoping for some more footage makes it here as well. Did nobody get Jordan Morton's goal v East Fife?

Will add in as many highlights as I can find online as I go on.  By the time we were in the Championship after winning League 1 I think there's plenty highlights to drool over. Not all good  

Jordan Morton's goal used to be on the BBTV section of the website but I don't think it exists anymore.  Don't forget Mark Ramsays goal that day as well.

[big al]

Good effort and nice touch mentioning Big Bob. He was well chuffed with his ‘taking the hedge’ plan.

[The Minertaur]

So after an unexpected but deserved promotion we were looking forward to life in the Championship where we would face old foes Dunfermline and Raith Rovers as well as Falkirk and Dundee. It was an exciting time at the club with Danny Lennon clearly a talented manager with a brilliant group of players to work with.

Our dynamic strike partnership of Wardlaw and McQuade looked like it could score at this level especially with our rock in midfield (Darren McGregor) controlling games.  The future was bright.

The future was shite.

Thanks Danny.

So we lost our top scorers, player of the year and manager all in a very quick period. 

Manager - Jimmy Nicholl. 

Signings - Lewis Coult, Marc McKenzie, Zane Powell, Lee Makel, Ludo Roy, Stevie Crawford, Richie Vauls, Colin Cameron, Lee Sibanda, Greg Stewart, Bob Malcolm

Loans - Steven Old, Archie Campbell

So we lost the majority of our attacking players in our starting 11.  First up was a Challenge Cup tie away to Raith Rovers. John Armstrong would score the only goal of the game (David McGurn unable to stop it) as we won 1-0! 

Unfortunately defeats followed to Clyde in the League Cup, Ross County in the league and Ayr in the Challenge Cup before we travelled to fellow part timers Stirling Albion in the league.

Scott Robertson would put the home side 1-0 up at half time but on the hour mark Lee Sibanda equalised for us before Dean Brett fired home from outside of the area. Chris Aitken saw red before John Dempster wrapped up the 3 points for us with 13 minutes to go. 4 goals and a red card - surely the most incredible game between the 2 sides that season?

Despite a 3-1 loss to Queen of the South we hit a bit of form in August and ended the month by beating Partick 2-1 at Central Park - goals from Fairbairn and Armstrong cancelled out the opening goal from Kris Doolan. A week later we went to Greenock and won 2-1 again! Mark Ramsay scored a stunning overhead kick before Stewart Kean equalised. John Dempster popped up with the winner though!  If I remember right at the end of August we sat 4th in the league!

I'm sure there were highlights of this game online somewhere but God knows where.  Was this when SFL TV was a thing? Fairly sure all the highlights would have been on there.

Then we had that game at East End Park.  That one moment that we'd dreamt of for years.  John Dempster opening the scoring to send the packed away end into scenes of celebrations that were similar to the goals against Brechin in the play off. Sadly The Pars came back and won with goals from Bell and Cardle.

We did beat Dundee 2-1 a week later though! Ramsay and Fairbairn for us and somebody called Leigh Griffiths for the away side. 

However it was soon to turn grim.  A 5-1 mauling from Falkirk was followed by a last gasp defeat against Raith Rovers. 3:50 for our goal.  Don't watch the rest  

 

A fantastic 2-2 draw at home to Morton followed - Davie Hay was sent off after just 7 minutes but we battled to avoid defeat. A few weeks after we welcome Stirling to Central Park and ran out 5-1 winners in a match most memorable for Kyle Miller scoring on his debut and The Binos having 2 players sent off. 

That was on the 6th of November.  We'd not win another league game until the 5th of March!  We lost heavily to Queen of the South (3-0), Dundee (3-0), Dunfermline (5-0). Morton (3-0), Dunfermline (4-0) and Falkirk (2-0) but did draw 1-1 away to Ross County and at home to Partick Thistle.

The next win was a big one.  We headed to Stirling Albion and this is how the table looked:

Simply a win for us here would probably be enough to avoid automatic relegation.  Remember in 20when they came back from 3-0 down to draw 3-3?

Greg Stewart with the winning goal there and he would get another 3 points for us just a few weeks later in an away match at Firhill:

 

As the season ticked on wins were hard to come by before we faced Ross County at Central Park.  A 2-1 win with goals from Ramsay and Scott Linton meant that the league table looked like this:

Stirling were all but down and we were 4 points behind Dundee and Ross County with 5 games to go.  A 2-2 draw away to Raith Rovers followed with Stewart scoring twice.  His second saw home keeper Andy McNeil blast a clearance of him and they both raced towards the Cowden fans with Stewart tapping into the empty net to make it 2-1.  An 89th minute equaliser from Mark Campbell all but left us in the play offs. 

A crazy 2-2 draw at Palmerston saw both teams end up with 9 men in a match where we also missed a penalty! A week later Stevie Crawford scored the only goal of the game as we beat Stirling for 4th time that season before Ross County thumped us 3-0 on the final day of the league season.

Play offs.

A semi final against Brechin City who we beat to promotion the season before could only mean one thing.

2-0 up in the first leg at half time - finished 2-2. 2nd leg was 0-0 after 70 minutes before Redman and Molloy scored the goals that saw us relegated to Division 2. Ayr would beat Brechin 3-2 in the final.

Other notable moments that season:

Peterhead knocked us out the Scottish Cup 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8-Dvn-v3HA

Lewis Coult assaulted some grass

Jimmy Nicholl delivered a Christmas message

Lewis Coult spoke

 

 

 

 

Edited November 20, 2019 by The Minertaur

[vince sinclair]

Some great memories

[The Minertaur]

Manager - Colin Cameron
Signings - Youssef Bejaoui, Thomas Flynn, Derek Lyle, Liam Cusack, David Cowan,
Loans - James Fowler, Kal Naismith, Jordan Morton, Gary Fisher, 

So we went into the Division 2 season with a new manager and a host of new players.  An encouraging pre-season though had Cowden fans of dreaming of a successful season.  We beat Spartans 9-0, Hearts 2-1, Dundee Utd XI 4-0 and St Mirren 3-1.

As usual though with Cowden the cups were not our friends. A 2-1 loss away to Raith Rovers saw us out the Challenge Cup (Lewis Coult netting) before we lost 4-3 on penalties after a 2-2 draw with Stenhousemuir to knock us out the League Cup.  A battling 2-2 draw with Forfar at Station Park to start the league season and it was a below par start to the season. 

 

A 3-1 win over Brechin got the season going though with goals from Mark Ramsay, Marc McKenzie and Jordan Morton.  We followed this up with a trip to Airdrie which is possibly my favourite ever away day in the league:

How Scott Linton didn't get a hat-trick that day is beyond me.  The Airdrie defence deciding to play with the highest line I've ever seen.

As always with Cowden things weren't rosy for long and a 3-1 loss to Stenhousemuir came but then a battling derby win over East Fife left us looking alright in the table.  Another amazing away day came in Dumbarton when we ran out 4-0 winners with goals from McKenzie, Robertson, Morton and Linton. I've seen these highlights before but can't find the online anywhere just now!

Wins over Albion (2-1), Stirling (2-0) and Forfar (3-1) followed with a draw away to Arbroath in between. Arbroath were looking like our title rivals and the 1-1 draw saw goals from Tom O'Brien and Josh Falkingham. A 1-0 defeat away to Brechin at the end of October was the catalyst for a crazy run as we wouldn't lose another league game until the end of January.

Next up - a trip to deepest darkest Methil

Stenhousemuir were defeated 2-0 before draws with Dumbarton, Albion and Arbroath before we had a boxing day trip to Stenhousemuir. Greg Stewart opened the scoring early on before Lewis Coult scored a late 2nd to seals the 3 points. Lewis celebrated by standing on the wall behind the goal and was quickly mobbed by the large away support. 

We then thumped East Fife 4-0 in the New Year derby in a game where Jordan Morton scored from the high street and Mark Ramsay showed great technical ability to control the ball, knock the ball past the defender and volley home without the ball hitting the deck.  Even the gaffer scored!

That set things up nicely for a Scottish Cup clash at home to Hibs.  We had knocked Bo'ness out in the previous round 3-0 in a game where the home side had a player sent off for kicking the ball at Coult as he celebrated scoring a penalty!

I was in the old stand when the game kicked off about 8 rows from the back.  30 seconds later I was down at the front going absolutely mental as Greg Stewart lashed the ball home after just 16 seconds.

Sadly Hibs stormed back with goals from Griffiths, Doyle and Wotherspoon but we pulled a goal back late on.  Jon Robertson flicked the ball over a defender before volleying home with the outside of his right boot.  The Scotsman reported:

Quote

WHEN Bluebell the cow came whizzing down the speedway track on his scooter you knew that things were getting lively at Central Park. He was giving it laldy, was Bluebell. Waving his arms, demanding the noise from the home fans as their team pushed hard for an equaliser in the Cup tie’s dying minutes. There were fewer than 3,000 people here, but it seemed more. To be among the home support in the ramshackle old stand was to know what Cup football was all about. The lot of them had the scent of a late leveller in their flaring nostrils – and they damn near got it.

A 2-0 win over Airdrie followed but was then followed by a 1-0 loss in Forfar. Again though the defeat set us up for a long unbeaten run as we went 10 games without loss.  Lewis Coult grabbed a hat-trick in a 4-1 win over Stirling before scoring twos goals in a 3-1 win over Albion.  A tough 1-1 draw in Arbroath saw Scott Linton get sent off after Chris Innes had opened the scoring for the home team.  Thankfully Marc McKenzie equalised in the 2nd half - slotting past the keeper when released one on one by Robertson. The result left us 4 points clear at the top.

A draw away at Stirling came before the 1-0 win over Brechin at Central Park in what has fondly been remembered as: 'that game when Derek Lyle scored a goal'. His last gasp winner led to jubilant scenes in the stands but it was a grim time for Brechin boss Jim Weir...

Fixtures started to pile up and a midweek trip to Dumbarton was one that no Cowden fan was looking forward to.  However a 2-0 win with goals from Mbu and McKenzie had us flying at the top of the league. McKenzie scored the only goal as we beat East Fife at Bayview again before a 0-0 draw with Stenhousemuir.  'Squib' though wasn't to wait long for his next goals with a brace in a 4-1 win over Dumbarton at Central Park.

The title was close but back to back defeats followed as a huge lead suddenly went down to just 4 points with 4 games to play. Firstly Albion beat us 1-0 at Cliftonhill before Arbroath claimed a crucial 3 points at Central Park.  I remember watching Gillette Soccer Saturday that day and I'm sure 3 of the 4 updates on screen at one moment were:

Cowdenbeath Red Card - Adamson
Arbroath Goal - Doris
Arbroath Goal - McAnespie

Fairly sure I have a picture of it somewhere so will try and dig it out. Arbroath won 3-2.

4 games to go and a 4 point lead. Next up? Stirling away while Arbroath faced local rivals Forfar.

Lewis Coult opened the scoring for Cowden with a lovely header after 6 minutes before Stirling were awarded a soft penalty.  Flynn saved it though and it's still the only time I've ever broken a seat a football ground as I booted the seat in front of me in celebration. Marc  McKenzie slotted home late on to secure a 2-0 win.....at the same time Forfar defeated Arbroath to put us 7 ahead with 3 to play.

We then played Forfar at Central Park knowing a win would be enough to win the division. How did we get on?

Cowdenbeath 2 - 0 Forfar - McKenzie(2).  Sadly I missed this game so I think I'll let everybody else post their comments about that day.  I remember getting a phone call from my Dad after the game on the track with the fans singing Championees.  A conga down the High Street led by Joe Mbu happened also that night?

We finished the season with a 2-2 draw away to Brechin with the Cowden fans in fancy dress (.  Then we had this:

Other things to note:

When the Sun Shines documentary was released:

A wee documentary on David Cowan:

 

[The_Pit_Owns]

5 hours ago, The Minertaur said:

Manager - Colin Cameron
Signings - Youssef Bejaoui, Thomas Flynn, Derek Lyle, Liam Cusack, David Cowan,
Loans - James Fowler, Kal Naismith, Jordan Morton, Gary Fisher

James Fowler didn't come on loan until 2 seasons later.

[big al]

Nae mention of the  draw at Erbroath with the half time end swapping carnage?

A highlight of that season.

[The Minertaur]

12 hours ago, The_Pit_Owns said:

James Fowler didn't come on loan until 2 seasons later.

Well Transfermarkt can get tae f**k

10 hours ago, big al said:

Nae mention of the  draw at Erbroath with the half time end swapping carnage?

A highlight of that season.

Forgot all about that! 

[The Minertaur]

Lots of excitement on this thread eh?

When will the Albion Rovers game be rearranged for?  

[The Minertaur]

Tuesday the 10th of February to answer my own question!

[Brazilianlex]

2 hours ago, The Minertaur said:

Tuesday the 10th of February to answer my own question!

You got the answer wrong then.

10th December I believe

[The Minertaur]

14 hours ago, Brazilianlex said:

You got the answer wrong then.

10th December I believe

Ah Albion tweeted the 10th of February and have since amended.  b*****ds  

[BinoBalls]

I see bookies have Elgin favourites for the Cowden v Elgin game on Saturday.  Do they know something I don't?  Should be a close game but surely Cowdenbeath's home record (won 6 out of 7) would make them favs.  Any injuries or suspensions to report before I raid my children's piggy banks and put it all on a home win?

[onecowden]

I see bookies have Elgin favourites for the Cowden v Elgin game on Saturday.  Do they know something I don't?  Should be a close game but surely Cowdenbeath's home record (won 6 out of 7) would make them favs.  Any injuries or suspensions to report before I raid my children's piggy banks and put it all on a home win?

I’ve made a few Bob this season. We have been odds against in pretty much every home game. I’ll be partaking again. Win or lose we are the value bet. We don’t have any new injuries. Suspensions I’m not sure.