Collie Cup glory for Linton Hotspur

Published 11 Dec 2009 12:01 0 Comments

Linton Hotspur 5 v 2 Earlston Rhymers

SATURDAY December 5, 2009, will long be remembered by the residents of West Linton, as their recently reformed football team won its fist silverware in more than 40 years.

The village turned out in great numbers for the Final of Collie Cup against the Division high flyers Earlston Rhymers.

Captain Campbell Forsyth spoke of his great pride in the Club achieving success in its first year and he hoped this might inspire the team onto future success.

The game, which was hosted by Tweeddale Rovers AFC in Peebles, saw Hotspur starting with the same 11 who took the field in the hard fought semi-final at Tweedmouth.

This meant that last week's hat-trick hero Ped Whelan had to settle for a place on the bench. Hotspur settled quickly and held the upper hand only for poor defending to undo the good work allowing Earlston to score with their first meaningful attack.

Linton Hostpur took a few minutes to recover from this, but when they got back into their slick passing game a good piece of interplay between Lyall Crane, Gregg Walter, Johnny Wardman and Campbell Forsyth saw a fine through ball threaded to Adam Cursiter who applied the finish with a well executed right foot shot.

This inspired the Spurs and they continued to press forward and were rewarded when some good play down the right by Scotty McFarlane saw the ball swung to the back post and a fine header down by Cursiter enabled Wardman to unleash an unstoppable 20 yard shot into the top right hand corner.

The remainder of the half saw Hotspur continue to dominate and a booking for the Earlston Centre Half as he crudely scythed down Mikey McEwan, who was playing outstandingly and causing the opposition defence all manners of problems with his close skill, pace and trickery.

The second half had barely started when McEwan latched onto a wonderful through ball by Walter and bore in on goal before finishing with an angled drive from 16 yards.

This was quickly followed by an intense period of pressure by the now dominant Hostpur side with all players eagerly wanting to play their part.

Another fine move this down the left side saw a mistimed tackle in the Earlston penalty box and from the resultant spot kick Walter increased Linton Hotspurs' advantage to three goals.

This should have been increased to four as from a great Walter free kick the goalkeeper spilled the ball only for McEwan to put the rebound agonisingly wide.

Ped Whelan was introduced for Adam Cursiter and shortly thereafter Shaz Ramzan replaced Graeme "Spud" Muirhead.

As the team adjusted to these changes, Earlston dominated for a period and missed a glorious chance with a header over the bar, before they scored a second goal after the Hotspur were caught ball watching.

However this proved too little too late as Forsyth expertly marshalled his troops.

This enabled Hotspur to make their final substitution when Donald Fraser replaced Man of the Match Mikey MeEwan, who left the field to a well deserved round of applause.

As the clock ticked down, Hotspur once again passed the ball with great panache and after some neat interchange between Fraser and McFarlane, Wardman applied the finish to put a more reflective score on a match which Linton Hotspur were dominant.

The sizeable crowd, the vast majority of which were from West Linton, created the final whistle with load cheers and enjoyed the presentation of the cup to Captain Forsyth.

Linton Hotspur would like to thank the Border Amateur League for their organisation, Tweeddale Rovers for the use of their facilities, Earlston Rhymers for their part in this sporting occasion and lastly the fans who travelled in support of the team.

Linton Hotspur FC: Gordon; Caine, Kidd, Forsyth, Coupar; McFarlane, Walters, Wardman, Cursiter (Whelan 60); McEwan (Fraser 80) Muirhead (Ramzan 75). Subs not used: Campbell, Burke.

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This article appeared in Peeblesshire News 11 Dec 09

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