Firstly Happy New Year to everyone, we hope everyone had a good time over the festive period and we wish them all the best for 2017.
 2017 started well for us with a comprehensive 3-1 victory over local opponents Arbroath Vics in the 2nd Round of the East of Scotland Cup.
 As a squad we only managed two sessions over the festive period for a variety of reasons but it did allow a number of boys to get over the injuries and knocks that they were carrying in to the fixture break. We gave the boys two hard sessions in preparation for last weekends game which seemed to have the desired effect we were looking for, with a really solid performance.
 We went into the game without Roddy Black, John Roberts, Jamie McCabe, Pat Smith, Steven Cook and Mikey McIIravey, however, this gave an opportunity to our younger squad players, Bailey Steele, Darren Cooper and Adam Brown, to come in to the squad and get some valuable game time.
 In the first half we scored two goals which were great, however, we had several easier opportunities that we did not convert and we should have increased our lead. In addition we scored a very well worked goal that in my opinion was wrongly disallowed by the match official, l when we were not given the advantage which was extremely frustrating. Whilst I was happy with the first half performance, I felt that we should have gone further in front than a 2 goal lead and I wanted to step up the momentum and kill the game off as early as we could. Â
 The second half saw Arbroath come into the game more and started to cause us  a few problems and they got their reward for what seemed a very soft penalty in the 49 minute. That seemed to be the catalyst to kick start us again although we didn’t increase our lead until the 72nd minute  when Gordon Macdonald nicked in and scored with a good finish, capitalising on a defensive error by the Vics. I felt that for the last 20 minutes or so we played some really good football and in all honestly should have scored at least one goal during this time, however it’s a cup game a win is a win.
 The objective at the start of the game was to progress in the competition and we have done that, not with a vintage performance but one that I was happy with and a good platform in preparation to this week’s league action against Jeanfield Swifts.
