Aliban-tastic! Glen retain Ali Ban with top notch display of goal getting.

Alas the Wing Centre was unable to make the game. As the Glen were winning the Ali Ban in fine style on the Park of Zeros up at Cannich he was in Partick trekking round the Salvation Army shop at the bottom of Dumbarton Road looking for a second hand deerstalker hat with which to conceal his identity on visits to shinty grounds this season. Sadly none were available.
A string of texts however kept him abreast of matters of a goal scoring kind and his heart leapt with joy. 7-1 was the final score and the texts came in the following manner.
5 minutes on the clock and Kelvin Mackenzie has put us one up –a good goal from the left. A spring came to the step of the Wing Centre .Five minutes later came the words Kelvin’s done it again – another good goal.
But then disaster -Strath have pulled a goal back.
Which of them got it? was the return text.
Young Harvey – and him living on the road to Milton too was the reply. But on reflection that was not so bad because he is an honorary drummer boy and one day he too will want to play for the Glen.
A few minutes later Ewan Menzies restored the balance of power. How? As the ball came across about the penalty spot he pounced on it and fired it into roof of the net. Shortly afterwards Calum “Jock” Fraser made it four and then just before halftime Ewan Brady fired in a drive from an acute angle which beat the Strath keeper all ends up. The Glen went in at 5 goals to 1 and the Wing Centre settled down to some serious shopping
Two more texts came to make the day complete : “Stuart Morrison has just got number 6” and finally “Chips has scored a screamer from 30 yards –a peach of a goal” Thus was the day complete and when a subsequent phone call made it clear that Hendo and Mike had packed the side with youngsters and that Ryan, Sam, Ross and Daniel Mac were also in the black and red then the Wing Centre could not have been more delighted. The Ali Ban now sits proudly on Hendo’s sideboard and to be truthful it is just as well we won it again because the Wing Centre asked Hendo’s Mam and she said that he was so sure they would win the trophy once again that he had not bothered to give it a wee shine with the old Silvo. Now that is what the Wing Centre calls cool.
After that the phone was switched off because there was rugby on the telly in one of the shop windows on Great Western Road and the Wing Centre stopped to watch it through the glass - and so it was not until he read Roy in the Highland News that the full horror of Saturday’s later events came home to him. The Crofters had beaten the Cabers by 8 goals to 1. James Macpherson and Fraser Gall got hat-tricks each while Greg Matheson and Euan Ferguson could only manage one apiece. That was some result. What are these lads on? The spirit in that crofting camp is high enough for them all to get together and attempt a community buy-out of the entire Lovat estate. Strangely enough there was nothing in the Wing Centre’s edition of the HN about the Macdonald Cup –though to be fair there was a piece cut out of the paper to the left of the Crofter’s report where the good lady had been snipping out some sort of advert which had presumably been placed on the back of the account of the match. As a result the Macdonald Cup remained out of mind until the phone was switched on later.
Three further texts noisily popped up on the screen: Lewis has put us two up- we are walking it and timed a few minutes later Corky has Darren Reid in his pocket. The final text was E J and Arran having tremendous games-both going for man of the match.Of course by the time these texts were read, they were historical documents but the guys were at training and so the Wing Centre went down to see the Cup. First a conversation with Lewis revealed that his two goals were excellent. Number one was a fine strike taken as he was running in on goal. Keeping his composure he simply patted the ball home. The second came from a ball which bounced off a defender and Lewis took it in the air and steered it home skilfully.
But where was EJ? Not at training? No in the 75th minute on Saturday he suffered a cut worth nine stitches after slipping on the turf. A few further questions soon made it clear that Stuart Reid, John Barr and Boy Macdonald were not playing. Neither Arran nor Cork won the Man of the Match -apparently.
There was no point in any further conversation. The Wing Centre went up the road and watched the Winter Olympics. The Macdonald Cup? No idea what happened to it but what an Alibantastic performance from the youngsters.
The pictures? As soon as we get them back from the Chemists we'll post the Aliban snaps.



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