Very Disappointing...

8th Nov 2008: East Fife 0, Lino Likkers 2 (Barrs Scottish League Division Two)

Ah'm no posh: ah grew up in a modest wee council house in Ayr; we never had a car; ah was in ma teens when we first got a 'phone in the hoose. All in all, we didnae have very much at all. But the one thing that ma parents did instil in me was manners. If I ever went tae somebody else's hoose, I knew how to behave. Sadly, it appears that's no' the way folk grow up in Kirkcaldy. They came to our home today, lookin' as miserable as sin as the scurried doon Harbour View, avoidin' eye contact at all costs, took their seats in the stand and.... lasted less than five minutes before setting off the fire alarm. It seems that the fuckers aren't capable of goin' ten minutes withoot havin' a sneaky (illegal) fag in the bogs. Very disappointing...

Five minutes from time today, Bobby Linn picked up what looked like a really nasty injury and, following some initial treatment, had to be stretchered off. The St Andrew's Ambulance mob were their usual professional selves, ensuring that the Boaby was safely strapped to the stretcher before making their way to the side of the pitch. Now ah wouldnae have been overly concerned if the Linos had given Linn some abuse (after all, that's the nature of the game....) but when 550 scumbags turned on the wee ambulance wifey, that's another story. Granted, even she wouldn't claim to be the slimmest woman in Fife, but when a quarter of the stadium are screaming, "You fat bastard, you fat bastard!" at the top of their lungs, you can't help thinking that there's a line that only the nastiest folk would overstep. Very disappointing...

Their fans' behaviour kinda put all the other disappointments of the afternoon into some kind of perspective. So, we lost a football match, our biggest rivals took all the spoils and will have the bragging rights for the next eight weeks until we head back to Pratt Street (somewhat befitting, eh?) to take back our three points but more importantly show them how a set of away fans should behave. So fuckin' what - if that rabble you brought with you reflects the rest of your so-called 'support', then yer fuckin' easy pleased. Enjoy the glory; believe me, it'll be short-lived.

And it might not ever have arrived. Straight from the kick off today it looked like we'd simply steamroller our visitors and pick up all the points. With less than two minutes on the clock, Dougie C whipped over a fierce corner kick which Temps attacked - and would have reached if the Linos' fullback hadn't tipped the ball away with his mitt. Charlie Richmond (aye, THE Charlie Richmond, grade one ref and darling of the big knobs at Hampden....) ignored the foul (they tell me there were good spread betting odds on the number of penalties in the game....) and the ball fell to big Tweedie. His thundering shot looked goal bound until it cannoned off another defender's arm (betting in-play allowed...) and flew over the bar.

We continued to pile on the pressure, the best that Wraith's defence could do was to throw themselves desperately in front of the ball and deflect it to safety. Corner after corner followed and just on ten minutes it looked like the breakthrough might be made. The ball fell perfectly for Bobby Linn whose sweetly timed shot had 'goal' written all over it. It took a sharp save from veteren keeper, Gary O'Conner (ah went tae school with his WEE brother...), to get down and turn it just round the post. Our early control was, of course, all too much for the lino likkers in the stand, some of whom had already headed tae the bogs wi' their roll-ups, matches and stinkin' contempt for the law. The alarm sounded, everyone ignored it and the boys on the park just knuckled down and continued tae rip the pish oota the Rovers.

For the first twenty minutes of the game the Linos barely encroached on Fife territory but as we failed to convert any chances into goals, they were always in the game. As the half wore on they finally found their game and began to knock some decent passes around. They didn't look the best team we've seen at Bayview this season but eventually they gained enough in confidence to push forward and create the occasional chance. Just on the half hour mark they opened the scoring - a real sickener and surely a goal that could have been avoided. We'd gifted them possession in midfield and then proceeded to back off and back off until Kevin Smith got to the edge of the box and fired a low drive past the despairing Brown in the Fife goal.

The fifteen hundred home fans were momentarily silenced, the Rovers' goal as unwarranted as it was unexpected, but the lads on the park took it in their stride and got on with the game. The Linos still looked nothing special so we continued to press forward, twice more carving out chances before the interval. On the first occasion, Shagger forced another decent save but the keeper had nothing to worry about when the ball fell to Dougie Cameron just outside the box. With the Wonderhorse screaming for it at the far post, Dougie elected instead to go for glory; sadly his first time effort went high and wide and ended up skelpin' a punter at the car dealership next door... Apparently, the guy hadnae been able tae get a ticket so was buyin' a new car as a consolation.... Them's the breaks, big lad.

As the teams marched off at halftime ah still thought that the Linos were there for the taking. We'd played some great football in the first half an hour or so and, for me, Wraith were nothing fancy. They'd certainly taken their goal well and the OAP keeper had pulled off a few decent saves but, with DB now doing his insprirational halftime pep talk, we'd surely come out and hone our cutting edge.

And it looked like the gaffer's team talk might have done the trick. Within seconds of the restart, Shagger was at it again, creating enough space to have a dig at goal. Not for the first time, however, he was frustrated to see the Wraith keeper somehow juggle the ball clear. It was a great start to the second half, mind, and gave us all renewed hope that there's be further chances. And then... the arse fell out of our world.

Just minutes later they pushed forward and the Fozzmeister was obliged to clumsily knock Kevin Smith on his backside. Fozzy was fortunate; if he'd delayed the tackle just a second, it might have been a penalty he'd conceded (and, fuck knows, maybe a second red card of the season). As it was, we all breathed a sigh of relief - get the wall in place, make sure Brown concentrates and let's get back up the other end. So, we got the wall in place, Brown concentrated and... Rob Sloan battered one home from the free kick. The agonising beauty of the goal was almost unbearable; the noise erupting from the far end of the stand most definitely was.

Ah suppose ah could now spend then next few paragraphs waxing on about how we kept on trying but failed tae find a breakthrough. The fact was that we did keep on fighting right until the end. The guys all put in a shift but in virtually every department we were consistently outplayed by our visitors. Now that they were two ahead, they simply concentrated on doing the basic stuff. They were calm and collected, they played out the remainder of the game professionally and, as the match wore on, they ensured that for all our hustle and bustle, we were singularly ineffectual in all our efforts.

Even the appearance of Deno did little to improve our mood. His added pace injected a new urgency into the middle of the park but, truth be known, the Wraith central defence was relatively unfazed by the new challenge. We failed to overcome their marking and were unable to string even basic passes together and, despite all our best efforts, found it all but impossible to get near the Rovers' goal. That together with the ominous darkness that was falling around us meant that what photos ah could take were of not much of anything. Ah switched off the camera and got into conversation with one of the ball boys behind the goal.

Michael was his name, and his tale did little to ease my melancholy. This was his second game of the day - he'd turned out in the morning for the boys' club in another big Fife derby and advised, with a dismissive, depressed voice that they'd been on the wrong and of a four-one doin' against Kennoway. Michael? Mare like fuckin' Jonah (although ah didnae use that kinda language when ah was speakin' tae him - just a wee lad after all). It had been a tough day for the lad, the enormity of its crapness made complete in my mind two minutes from the end when Willie McCulloch made his way round the pitch and up the tunnel. "Wish you'd been between the sticks the day, Wullie," muttered the wee guy.

Fuck sake - a four-one hammerin' in the morning, a two-zip pummelling in the afternoon and his favourite player no' even getting a chance tae show what he's made of. If ah was superstitious, ah'd be asking that the club makes sure that wee Michael never gets near Bayview again!!!! (Just kiddin' wee man.)

But it wasnae ill fortune or bad karma that stopped us picking up the points today. If effort was all it took tae win games, we'd win every time. But sadly, it was the two goals that the Linos scored that made all the difference. Their team played well, especially in the second half, and they'll be pleased to be heading back to KDY with the three points. And on that basis, ah'd normally have nae concerns with the victorious fans enjoying the spoils.

However, once more they embarrassed their team big time. Spilling out of the stadium, they looked like they'd lost a loved one. Instead of enjoying the moment, they appeared instead to be more inclined to mourne their win. As they headed back to their wagons and coal trucks, they were more intent on starting fights than making their way to celebratory drinks (the way we do stuff in the real world). There's something quite disturbing seeing grown men spoiling for a scrap with old aged pensioners and wee laddies. But, as ah made ma way up intae town to meet the missus, that's just what ah witnessed. Very disappointing.

But surely nothing can be as disappointing as what every single one of those lino likkin' fuckwits would wake up to this morning. Sure they had a great night out when they headed back to Kirkcaldy, a few well earned watered doon beers at their usual hangouts. Their wives would go to bed secure (for a change) that their menfolk would be too pissed tae lift a hand in anger when they got home. The boozers in the Linktown will have increased their takings sufficiently to enable them tae meet the rent this week and the kebab stains will be lasting testimony to the rubbishy shirts they sell in the Officer's Club in the Merkat.

But what will most ease the pain that we felt this afternoon is the knowledge that as every single one of those lino likkin' twats drags his sorry arse out of bed on Sunday morning and staggers, hungover, intae the bathroom fur a shite an' a scratch at his pea sized baws, he'll eventually make it to the sink and look intae the mirror. An' all that he'll see staring forlornly back at him will be the puss of a twisted, lowlife, lino-likkin cunt. And that surely must be the greatest disappointment of all...