We welcome the players, officials and supporters of Shettleston Football Club to Westfield Park today for our Central District League Div 2 meeting.

Since my last report, as you will know, we have had mixed fortunes in terms of results over the last two games.

The win against Stonehouse, although not our best as far as the football was concerned, the players showed plenty character to get themselves back into the game after going a goal down in the first half. The players raised the tempo after the restart and were camped in the oppositions half for most of the second period, they showed great desire and would not accept defeat even when the chances we were creating were not going in for us for one reason or another, to there credit, they did not let the missed opportunities affect there approach, if anything, it inspired them to push themselves even harder.

When the equaliser did come through a splendid strike from Bryan Grant (who has been terrific for us since the start of the season) they were only going to be one winner and that came when Warner Devlin fired home late into the match.

As I stated, our football was not at its best, but as will happen throughout the season, sometimes you just need to grind the result out and that's what the boys did on this occasion.

The pleasing aspect from a management point of view was that the whole bench was on the touch line as the final whistle was blown to celebrate with the players who finished the match.

The squad, although healthy in numbers was reduced to fifteen players for a number of reasons for the away match against Blantyre last weekend. This highlights how important every member of the squad is for the games that lie ahead.

The game was a close fought affair with us being on the wrong side of a 1-0 score line.

The players felt a sense of injustice after the game as it seemed we had the ball over the goal line as we chased the equaliser in the second half but the referee was not convinced and allowed play to carry on when the ball was hooked clear.

We played well enough in the match but in the cold light of day, we must concede that we did not create enough in front of goal with the amount of possession we had.

Today will be another good test against Shettleston and the players need, and I'm sure will, show the right attitude to bounce back from last weeks disappointment and get our campaign back on track.

I hope you enjoy today's match and thank you for your continued support.

Mick McCafferty
Assistant Manager