Champions

Posted on Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

Congratulations to our Senior XI for winning the EoS League championship for the third season in succession.  A Ross Archibald penalty in the 84th minute was the only goal of the game at Whitehill.  With Danny O’Donnel, Omar Kader and Chris Smith all out our under 19s striker Murray Halliday came onto the bench for his first outing with the Seniors.  David Etale then didn’t make it through the warm up so options from the bench were going to be limited.

We opened brightly with Gavin Malin and Jack Beesley both coming close however Gormley’s pace was causing us problems when Whitehill broke.  The bumpy pitch meant little football was on show with no clear cut chances in the opening 45 minutes.  Worrying for us was a bad knee injury to Alex King just before the break.  He was hobbling badly after the game and is likely to be out for some time.  Jordan Finnie came on as a straight replacement, and he had played  a tough 90 minutes for the 19s last night!

In the second hald we controlled the game but again chances were rare.  Whitehill seemed to tire and we had our two best chances within a minute, firstly Ross Archibald heading over a great Dean Hoskins corner and then Keith McLeod’s snap shot being pushed wide by Benji.  The bumpy pitch had been causing Jack problems all night but he produced a bit of magic with six minutes left.  He beat his full back and cut inside beating another defender who aught him late just inside the box.  Ross picked up the ball and hammered it home off the underside of the crossbar.  We had one scare when a long free kick bounced around our 6 yard box but it was hacked clear.  The final whistle went to a loud cheer from the watching band of over 100 Spartans fans.  The Malt and Hops MoM went to Robbie Manson who managed more controlled first touches than almost everyone else added together.  We received the trophy in standard low key EoS fashion on the pitch.  Co-manager Sam Lynch was delighted “I thanked the players for their superb efforts over the season and reminded them we had a number of big games still to come starting with our King Cup semi final against Edinburgh Uni on Saturday.  Alex looks like he’ll be out for a while and David is struggling but I was delighted with Jordan tonight in the biggest game he has played for us to date.  Tonight is my seventh league title at Spartans and I’ve enjoyed every one!”

Team: Flockhart, Archibald, Hoskins, Sivewright, Townsley, King (Finnie 43), Malin (Fowlie 74), McLeod, Henretty, Beesley, Manson Subs not used: Etale, McGarrie, Halliday