Narrow Balgate win for Glen

Lovat 1 Glenurquhart 2


If any game was a four pointer this had to be it. Make no bones about it the Crofters are a good team when they have all their guys on board as Inveraray found out last weekend and so a Glen Premier League victory over at Balgate was –after the Fort win over Kingussie – the game of the day. Which is why the Wing Centre was bemused to see that The Courier had given top billing to Beauly’s traditional failure to reach the first round of the Camanachd Cup.
To be truthful your humble correspondent put it down to the Courier’s desire to have an April Fool story even though by an accident of the calendar, the bi-weekly Beast did not come out on the first day of the cruellest month. Still one supposes shinty was lucky to get on part of a page at all given that the Courier has gradually turned into a Caley Thistle fanzine what with even the Editorial telling us to forget the misery of future council cuts and support Caley’s bid to win promotion. Given that the Wing Centre first saw the light of day in Dingwall in a time when progressive Ross was proudly tied to Cromarty and Inverness-shire was a backward county full of clan chiefs and tweed shops, there ain’ t no way that is going to happen. As a final thought- if Mr Alston wishes help to balance the budget at the Home of Rest, he could do worse than ask George Fraser to give back the £1,000,000 the Blues got from the Common Good to build down at the dump.
Anyway rant over – credit must be given to the Lovat website for an honest summary of the Glen game. It was balanced and fair and the Wing Centre will quote from it in homage to the unknown and honest scribe who put it together.

“Game of two halves leaves Lovat pointless. Lovat started their home match against Glenurquhart in the Premier League against the strong wind and quickly lost two goals in the opening exchanges, Calum Miller and Neil Reid the scorers. Lovat managed to hold on despite heavy pressure from Glenurquhart and went in at half time trailing by two. The second half was a different story however, with Lovat having the bulk of the pressure. Stuart MacDonald was called on a number of occasions however, and did well to prevent further damage. Unfortunately, Lovat found goals more difficult to come by until Ryan Ferguson managed to slip a shot past Stuart Mackintosh, but it proved to be too little too late for Lovat”
(Thanks to http://www.lovatshintyclub.co.uk/news.html)

When the Glen website gets up and running and the Treasurer tells me he has just been billed for it then there is no way it should be as open and frank as the Lovat web experience has been- or perhaps the D will have to soldier on in its own biased way. Speaking of which, it might be nice to put some flesh on the bare bones of the story as gleaned from the Lovat website.
For this a conversation had to be had with various Glenners over the course of the weekend since the Wing Centre unavoidably missed the match.
The following is a compilation of several interviews premised on the question “How did the first team play?”
“Usual story- a great start then we faded away” said Hendo-but then he was in Beauly and he could have been talking about the 2nd team game.
The Manager indicated that the team certainly had started well and played the ball about up front with some aplomb (he did not actually say “aplomb” but that is what he meant) The first goal which came in 12 minutes was very much a Calum Miller solo effort. The big forward who has incidentally been playing well this season picked up a nice pass, cut back past the full back, took it inside the wing back and pushed it home with control.
The second goal came three minutes later from Neale Reade who collected a ball from EJ Tembo and kept his focus to score with a nice shot from just about the penalty spot. There was a third ball in the net for the Glen too when Lewis Maclennan fired one home only to see it chalked off. Glen continued to push and should have scored more but Lovat held on to half time.
The second half? Glen lost out somewhere in midfield but there were attempts to score which Lovat’s Stuart kept out. Ewan Ferguson dug in and the wind blew strongly “from the houses up to Brockies” and it is always possible that Lovat were fitter than the Glen. That couldn’t be, could it?
In the end it did not matter since the Lovat goal from Ryan Ferguson came late in the day but we have to score when we are in command. Still well done to Neale Reid (pictured) –he has now scored a goal in the last three games.
Meanwhile over at Braeview the Heroes won 3-0 against Beauly thanks to an early goal from Dave “Chips” Smart (“good strike from just inside the penalty spot”) and second half goals from Ian Macleod and youngster Daniel Mackintosh. The game was also noteworthy because Mike and Hendo blooded two more young players –Euan Lloyd and Cameron Maclennan- which is truthfully what playing shinty at this level should be about.
Thanks to Neil Paterson for the pic of Neale Reid ( http://www.neilgpaterson.com)




Free Counter