Today we play Edusport for the 2nd time in 11 days in the 4th Round of the South Challenge Cup, which Civil Service won in 17/18 and where we were beaten finalists last time round.
Before then though I’m in a little bit of a quandary – The Stirling job in League 2 is now available, as is East Stirlingshire in our current league. Indeed I has a question from the (Not-so) gentlepeople of the press regarding East Stirlingshire, which I had to refute (I hadn’t had any contact from East Stirlingshire so it wasn’t a lie).
Both have their plus and minus points, so lets have a look at both.
Stirling Albion :
+ League 2, 1 Star Rep, Ticket Price £13 (£2 for Civil Service), 249 Season Ticket Holders (13 for Civil Service), Okay Finances, Av. Attendance 617 (102 Civil Service)
– Bottom Of Table, 5 points off 9th, 20 minute each way extra commute, £40k/year rent on the Forthbank Stadium
I think Stirling would a good shout – financially they look good, £142k sallary/annum v Civil Service @ £40k, they were pre-season favourites so are massively underperforming, so I don’t think it would take too much to get them up the table in the rest of the season before I can start making them in my own image. Application Sent 🙂
East Stirlingshire:
+ 1 Star Rep, Ticket Price £10 (£2 for Civil Service), 94 Season Ticket Holders (13 for Civil Service), Okay Finances, Av. Attendance 266 (102 Civil Service)
– Second-Bottom in same division as Civil Service, small first team squad, extra 5 minute commute each way, £20k/year rent on the Falkirk Stadium.
I’d already been questioned by the press about the East Stirlingshire role, but have had nothing from the club directly. They obviously are a bigger club than Civil Service, have better facilities, a bigger fanbase and are stable financially but compared to Stirling they are definitely smaller. I’m not going to follow this one up at the moment as I think I can do equally well if not better with Civil Service.
So to today’s South Challenge Cup 4th round game v Edusport, who gave us a good game 11 days ago. We are normally drawn away in the cups so it nice to be at Christie Gillies Park.
What are we good at – Passing, Crossing & Heading. As such I’ve lengthened the passing a bit, WB’s on attack duty, Hit Early Crosses. As this is a bit more attacking our No. 10 is sacrificed for a BWM on Defend in McVitie. Hainey (6ft) partners Lumsden (6ft 2in) up top. Burbidge is in as the attacking right wing-back. A result is not as important with this one, still it would be nice. And as Edusport played on Sunday we are 1 day fresher. Edusport go 4-4-2.
HT Civil Service 1 (Hainey 43) Edusport 2 (Murrell 18, Bastien 45)
19C in November in Edinburgh!!! Global Warming is kicking on a pace. And Drizzle 🙂 Edusport started off strongly, and took the lead in the 18th minute with a Murrell header from a corner. McVitie back to DM, both Balfour & MacEwan changed to CM on Attack. Edusport by far looked the more dangerous but in the 43rd minute a Balfour header was fumbled by the Edusport keeper, with Hainey on hand to finish to make it 1-1. Just 2 minutes later however the ball came out to Bastian who placed a shot past Kinnear to make it 2-1 to Edusport. And thats how the half finished. We are definitely falling of form a bit – may compress our lines a bit as without the No. 10 there’s a bit of a gap. Also absolved my wing-backs of positional marking responsibilities, put them on Support, asked them to Cross from Deep and More Often. Also gone wider in our attacking shape and more direct in passing, Counter Attack, and asked my attacking Centre Mids to Underlap. Churchill on for MacEwan.
FT Civil Service 1 (Hainey 43) Edusport 2 (Murrell 18, Bastien 45) Att 85 (15 Away)
A much better start to the half, with the wingbacks much more involved. Coll on for Mair at 65, McVitie up into Centre Mid as BWM on Support. Clappers on for Balfour on 76, struggling to make a breakthrough. Burbidge up to attacking winger. And that’s how it ended – a 2-1 loss. Disappointing that we were a bit toothless when we should have been pumping the ball into the box from wide areas at every opportunity.
Next up in 3 days is Queen’s Park at home – the first time we have played them in this save. See you then.