Forthbank Stadium
 
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Stirling Albion v Alloa Athletic
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Stirling Albion v Alloa Athletic U20
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Stirling Albion v Alloa Athletic
Alloa Athletic progressed through to the Petrofac Training Cup Quarter-final stage after defeating local rivals Stirling Albion 2-1 at Forthbank Stadium. Greig Spence was once again the “The Wasps” hero netting twice, taking his total to five goals in the opening two rounds of the competition and tournament top scorer. The eight teams who go into tomorrow’s draw, on Thursday 21st August, 2014 at 2pm are:- Alloa Athletic, East Fife, Falkirk, Livingston, Morton, Peterhead, Rangers & Stranraer.
barry smith at forthbank
We are delighted to be in the Quarter Finals of the Petrofac Training Cup, I think we have played better in the past two games in the league, but winning is what is important.
I think at 2 – 0 we were comfortable, but we took our foot off the gas and Stirling Albion got back into the game, but we are through on the night and that is the main thing.
Greig Spence has done well in this tournament, that is five goals in two games – but he has to take that form into the league games and I’m sure he will. The first goal was a great goal, being able to get across the defender and nipping in at the front post, he did that brilliantly and the second was a great reaction, both were great strikers goals.
We didn’t play as well as we can but I didn’t think Stirling Albion did enough to win the game.
We have taken the positives in our play from the last two league games, we were playing well but we still wanted to win games and winning games builds confidence, so we will take the confidence from winning tonight into Saturday’s game against Cowdenbeath at Central Park, we know it will be a tough game.
Steven Hetherington made his full debut tonight, he came to the club in the close season and proved worthy of a contract and I believe he was worth a start tonight.
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Stirling Albion v Alloa Athletic
No one could have wrote the script for this match against Stirling Albion, “The Wasps” winning against all the odds against their local rivals in a match where they had to draft in a “trialist” centre back such was the limit to the players before the game and then to lose another three players during the first half – this was a massive result for the club and showed the spirit and will to win in the Alloa squad. Manager Allan Maitland was looking for a positive result after the disappointment of Tuesday night’s result against Dumbarton but was aware better than anybody, just who was available. Danny Main played in the centre of the defence as a trialist from Bo’ness United and was imense, as was every player who wore an Alloa Athletic shirt at Forthbank Stadium. Mark Gilhaney had to be replaced after only 16 minutes by Jamie Hay, then top scorer Stuart Noble had to go off after 25 minutes with David Gormley taking his place, four minutes later David Gormley scored a wonderful goal to put Alloa ahead. At half-time David McClune couldn’t play on and Ross Philp replaced McClune. Stirling Albion at this stage knew Alloa had a weakened side and pushed hard for the equaliser but twenty mintes from time Jamie Hay sent over an inch perfect pass and Bryan Prunty nipped in to make it 2-0, with Stirling then pushing more forward Prunty again caught out the home defence to double his tally and make it 3-0, there was no way back and Alloa won for the second time at Forthbank this season.
allan maitland after stirling albion
Today we had no Scott Walker, Chris Townsley or Scot Buist, Andy Scott then failed a late fitness test, no Kevin Welsh, then when we played the first half we lost David McClune, Stuart Noble, Mark Gilhaney, we are eight players down and 1-0 up, you think you are going to have to dig in and hang on to the game, however the back four and John Grant in the middle of the park did magnificently well at that bit, and then to score another two goals and win the game 3-0 speaks volumes for where we are in terms of team spirit and obviously recovering from Tuesday night was so important but it is difficult for Stirling Albion they are in a situation themselves where they have not been winning and are desperate to win and they are 1-0 down and they can see we have got a weakened team on the park and they are throwing bodies forward so there is always a chance they might get caught on the break. The first goal is obviously important for us David Gormley who had a really difficult night on Tuesday night at Dumbarton where nothing went right for him comes on the park and within 5 minutes scores a magnificent goal for us and that is really the thing that helped us enormously, even though you have all these other set backs it give you something to hang on to and one thing our team can do this season is hang on and dig in and they know they have a great goal keeper behind them who had a great save I think at 1-0. There was two good penalty claims in there which one of them might have been a penalty, I’m not quite sure I thought the second one it looked as though Tiff maybe knocked the ball out of the park but the first one looked like a penalty, equally on Tuesday night there was a penalty given against us that was never a penalty so I dare say these things balance themselves out. Mark Brown , was magnificent as I said already and we just had a day when we probably looked like the team that wanted it more than they did and that’s my opinion. With Bryan Prunty on the park you always have a chance because he will score us goals, his goals have been invaluable already but him and David Gormley were both at Ayr United and we signed the two of them hoping they would be able to link up but they’ve not managed that at all so far but today for the first time that happened the two of them have scored goals and it’s a wonderful result for us – I mean a wonderful result – one at half time that I’m sure nobody here could have seen coming, but as I said the spirit in the camp is magnificent, we will need to count the bodies for Tuesday nights game at Cowdenbeath but at the moment we will enjoy this one and I’m sure the game a week on Tuesday against Stirling will be an eventful one, hopefully with the same result. I feel for Stirling Albion because they played well during the game but we caught them in the counter attack and that has happened to them a lot this year, not scoring goals and losing Martin Grehan and Bryan Prunty has been a big blow to them but its came at our benefit.
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Stirling Albion v Alloa Athletic
Alloa Athletic defeated Stirling Albion at Forthbank Stadium, their first victory at Forthbank since Allan Maitland took over as team manager in January, 2006, the last time an Alloa Athletic side had won at Forthbank Stadium was back on 27th August, 2005 when “The Wasps” won 2-1 with goals from Robert Sloan & David Greenhill. This was a game Alloa needed to win, knowing defeat would put the team nine points behind Stirling Albion and the players certainly gave their all. The only goal of the game came after 22 minutes when Stuart Noble was fouled in the box and Andy Scott scored his 2nd winning goal of the season against Stirling Albion and their manager Allan Moore who had decided not to sign Andy after trial matches with Stirling Albion after being released by Motherwell. Alloa had other opportunities to score through John Grant and Stuart Noble, but with only two left Mark Brown missed the best chance of the match after being put through by Brian Carrigan, but the advancing Scott Christie saved and the Alloa fans had to wait till the referee played five minutes extra time before exebrating such an important win for the side.
allan maitland at forthbank
Obviously it was a magnificent game for us to win, the win meant everything to us today, I know Stirling Albion had a lot of pressure in the second half but throughout the game I thought we had the best chances in the game, in the first half I thought we were worth our 1-0 lead, it was a stonewall penalty, which was also our first of the season incidentally, a magnificent finish from Andy Scott with Stuart Noble and Brian Carrigan always a threat to the Albion defence. In the second half as Stirling poured bodies forward, not unlike the game earlier in the season at the Recs, we went to five in the middle of the park and we didn’t hold on to the ball the same and it kept on coming back, however whenever the ball went into the box there always seemed to be an Alloa player there, we threw our bodies at it, blocked things, they did have two good chances at the back post when their two players got in each others way and should have scored but equally Mark Brown had the best chance of the second half and I always felt there was a second goal for us if we had a wee bit more composure. Having gone on a run of six games without a victory we have now managed to turn that around, shut outs help, winning against Clyde gave us a bit more confidence and today’s victory now leaves us only three points of the top of the league, so we are in good shape a lot better shape than we were three or four weeks ago, Brown Ferguson got injured today but generally the injury situation is improving and that is a factor in why we are again doing better, a great result for us today, delighted for all the Alloa Athletic fans, my first victory against Stirling Albion at Forthbank since I became the manager of Alloa Athletic, but our recent record over Stirling Albion hasn’t been all that bad, so it has been a big day for us and if we can keep winning these derby matches we shouldn’t be too far away.
Mark Brown has had an excellent game today, but when Brian Carrigan put him through on goal with just the keeper to beat, it’s not a position where you would normally find Mark Brown, last week against Clyde, it was Mark who set up Brian Carrigan for our opening goal, today he had that opportunity, the big change today was at the beginning of the second half when Liam Corr came on and played just behind the front two and that was causing us huge problems until I changed our shape and moved Mark into that area and he did that really well, he was excellent for us and that made their chances all the more difficult to come by, they then started punting balls into our box which with Scott Walker and Scot Buist at the heart of the defence we dealt with that. Today I felt our team looked like they wanted to win from the off, and usually the team that needs it most wins, maybe that’s what happened today. We certainly needed the victory far more than Stirling Albion did and were rewarded for our efforts.
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Stirling Albion v Alloa Athletic
The first local derby of the week at Forthbank ended goal less in a game played in torrential rain, the visitors first threatened with a Chris Townsley header which Scott Christie had to look sharp to deal with. Ten minutes later Michael Mullen was allowed to run clean through from a suspiciously looking offside position, however after rounding Alloa keeper Raymond Jellema his shot was headed clear. In the second half Stirling Albion had the better of the early exchanges and will look to a Mark Docherty shot which struck the woodwork. Iain Campbell had a goal bound shot tipped over by Scott Christie and as the game drew to a close it was “The Wasps” who had the final chances, Greig Spence firing narrowly over and a Brian Carrigan effort in the final minute which Scott Christie managed to somehow keep out. Over the piece on the evening a draw was about right.
allan maitland after derby stalemate
It was a very difficult night with two honest teams giving it their all , it is not the worst 0-0 draw I have ever seen , both teams were very committed, Stirling had a twenty minute spell in the second half when John O’Neil caused us real problems got in behind us and Ross Forsyth hit the post and John had a shot himself which skidded by the post and at that time they were on top but we got our selves back into the game, the subs helped us, Brian Carrigan gave us a bit of guile which was missing previously and Greig Spence was always a threat up front, while Pat Scullion did well in the centre of the park, by the end of the game Iain Campbell was unwell and Dougie Hill was struggling with his groin which allowed big Martin Grehan to get onto flick on’s all the time which was a problem because the ball was sticking at our end of the park to often for my liking. This was a game two months ago we would have lost, but we are digging in now and getting something out of games which previously we were unable to do, tonight’s result becomes a good result if we win on Saturday. Both teams worked really hard and a draw was a fair result but we will look to win on Saturday and take four points out of the two games. Thought Stirling had their moments, we were decent, worked really hard, so a draw is a fair result. We had a great chance at the end when their goalkeeper made a magnificent save from Brian Carrigan. Bit by bit we are dragging ourselves away from the bottom of the league, in Scot Buist we had the one outstanding defender on the park tonight and he covered up for Dougie in the second half when he was suffering through his groin injury.
Saturday will be a different game and one we will look to win.
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Stirling Albion v Alloa Athletic
In the eagerly awaited first derby match of the season against local rivals, Stirling Albion, Alloa Athletic continued their recent run of poor results against “The Albion” with manager Allan Maitland still seeking his first victory over the club’s biggest rivals. This was a game everyone at Recreation Park wanted to win and the side got off to the perfect start with a wonderful goal by ex Stirling Albion player Dougie Wilson who unleashed a 30 yard shot past Myles Hogarth to give “ The Wasps” the all important opening goal, but gradually Stirling Albion were having the lion’s share of possession and Andy Graham choose to have a shot at goal which took a huge deflection off the luckless Iain Campbell to wrong foot Raymond Jellema and give the home side an equaliser. Nine minutes later the Alloa defence stood watching as Stirling Albion passed their way around and into the box, before Ian Harty made it 2-1. Young Liam Corr made in 3-1 before Andy Ferguson give Alloa hope just before half-time making it 3-2 in a pulsating first half. Although Alloa had chances in the second half the fans had to endure another defeat by their local rivals, while Stirling Albion extended their unbeaten run against “The Wasps” to eight league games.
allan maitland on forthbank defeat
It was a very exciting first half I thought, a magnificent start to the game, obviously being a derby game we wanted play the game as a derby, thought we started really well in the game, a great goal by Dougie Wilson which gave us the perfect start, then for some reason, which certainly was not as discussed before the game, I felt we sat back and allowed Stirling Albion more and more of the ball and I thought our defending at all three goals was nothing short of diabolical, that’s the way it has been for us this season, we brought players into the club to make the side defensively better and it’s not happened for us. How many touches of the ball did Stirling Albion have in our box at the second goal, it was incredible. It was pass, pass, pass with three men all over the place, squared to the back post and a free shot at goal. To say I’m disappointed is an understatement, when we go away from home and score two goals I expect us to win the game, I thought offensively at times in the first half we were good, the second half when we were chasing the game we were obviously getting frustrated a lot which was all of our own doing, but when you are chasing the game and not getting advantages when the referee was pulling things back, its all these wee frustrations the same situation with the time wasting, but to be fair to the referee I think he did add on at the end , but we allowed all that to happen because we performed so poorly defensively and its been a major problem for us, I think we have good players on the park, we had everybody available , we should come to Forthbank and win, I cannot even start to express my disappointment that not winning that game today, but well done to Stirling Albion.
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