Our 13th league game and last game in November takes us 35 miles south via Peebles to the small town of Innerleithen to face Vale of Leithen ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vale_of_Leithen_F.C. )
A founder member of the Lowland league in 2013, Vale of Leithen finished 15th in the 2017/18 season, are expected to finish 13th this season but are currently 8th on 15 points. The play a strict 4-4-2 , score pretty freely (though they drew 0-0 in their last match) and have a weak squad (Our scouts suggest they only have one 3* current ability player, a few 2’s and 1.5’s) compared to Civil Service. I feel this might be slightly trickier than the numbers suggest though.
We have 10 days off after this game so we are going to really go for it.
Hainey starts up top, Devers as AP for McCulloch as DLP, Balfour as a Support Mezzala as opposed to a CM (A), Clappers as a DM (Support), which I have him training as now to try and stop him getting sent off/booked, everybody else as is. We are going positive, and the Wingers are on attack duty. Lets finish November with a 100% record (And hopefully a clean sheet sweep). The weather (9C Sunny Spells) is almost perfect, hoping for a solid, more open 1st half than in the last game.
HT Vale of Leithen 0 Civil Service 3 (Hainey pen 18,Balfour 23, Barras 36)
A far more interesting start to the game than v East Stirlingshire; we were awarded a penalty in the 18th minute after Devers was scythed down; Hainey dispatched it with aplomb. 5 minutes later Balfour made it 2, receiving the ball from Faye and finishing strongly from 22 yards dead centre. The Vale (Have they any Arryn’s??) were looking pretty shell-shocked. In the 36th minute a beautiful cross from Devers found Barras at the back post and he finished calmly to make it 3-0. The Vale came back into the game at the end of the half but the Strollers defence seems pretty impregnable at the moment. A superb half of football, considering we only had 40% possession!!!
FT Vale of Leithen 0 Civil Service 3 (Hainey pen 18,Balfour 23, Barras 36) Att 24 (3 Away)
The Vale started the 2nd half strongly and the Strollers seemed more than happy to sit on the 3-0, with only 1 shot in the whole 2nd half. The Vale bossed the half as the stats show and deserved a goal but none was forthcoming, 3-0 it finished. 100% record in November and 5 clean sheets out of 5!!!
Above are our competitive games so far – Can’t remember ever having started a season so well in any save in FM19.
9 points clear of East Kilbride, but BSC Glasgow have a game in hand to get back to 7pts away from us. Next game we play the return Gretna 2008 FC fixture (The only team we’ve not played yet is Cumbernauld) plus we will be running the numbers for November – I’m expecting quite a few attribute changes as Mr Barras has shown recently! See you then.
(Stop Press – Our Ressies beat St. Cuthbert Reserves 2-1 on Nov 22nd – Guthrie & Boyle the scorers and Lochar Reserves 4-1 on the 24th; Churchill, Garden, Downie & and O.G the scorers. Lastly Annan lost 2-0 to Montrose in the Scottish Cup – The game we should have been playing in!)