Berwick Rangers 3-0 Annan Athletic

Penalty fever

We brushed past Annan on Saturday as Shielfield, scoring two penalties and missing one on the way. That makes a total of 6 penalties in our previous two games at Shielfield Park.

Post-match, McGonigal said: "I looked at these matches back to back at home as must-wins and this sets us up nicely. It was particularly pleasing to keep a clean sheet."

"This result has been a long time coming but I have said on a number of occasions I think we are heading the in right direction."

Stenhousemuir 2-0 Berwick Rangers

It is fair to say that Alan McGonigal will be feeling the pressure after we fell to our 4th league defeat of the season. We have now only recorded four wins in 44 games.

To be fair we did go down fighting, with a much improved display. Partly due to a much more stable looking defence which was lead by the reinstated Robbie Horn, who was excellent.

Kevin Motion, the man that we had looked to get in during the Summer was at the centre of most of Stenny's moves and had a part to play in both goals, the second being the penalty he won for the home side (video below).

It was John Overstone who had headed Stenny infront early on and Dalziel sealed it with the penalty 15 minutes from time.

The Berwick manager and the board took a bit of stick from the travelling fans. But McGonigal seemed unfazed by it all post-match: "We dominated most of the play but when you are down at the bottom you seldom get any breaks. But we are not downhearted and will keep working away. If we keep playing like that the breaks will come along."

John Coughlin will be enjoying football life just now and had this to say: "I am delighted with another clean sheet and the three points that keep us ahead of everyone else. Berwick made it difficult, as you would expect, but although the performance was not the best the result keeps us in pole position in the title race and I can have no qualms about that."

Summer 2008

Well the Summer is well on it's way out, with the dark nights closing in and the return of taking a jacket along to the football. I hope you all had a good Summer, I certainly did!

I wish I could say the same thing about Berwick Rangers FC. 

It was only a matter of time before Michael Renwick was shown the door and indeed he was, after a thrashing from Raith on 19th April. It was the night of Gary O'Connor's Testimonial Quiz Night when the news filtered through via the players in attendance. There was almost a massive sigh of relief by the players and the fans there that night.

In May we heard of the appointment of Alan McGonigal. Who? That was what most of us said straight away. I had never heard of the guy, although I don't follow Junior football at all. A friend of mine who does follow it said he was highly rated at Camelon and given the success we had with John Coughlin, most fans were more than willing to give Alan a fair chance. Although I suppose any new manager should be given a chance really.

He brought with him a glut of new signings from the Junior ranks. I must admit I do remember thinking at the time it was just too much. When Coughlin bought Junior players in the Summer of 2005, he kept a core of senior players too. Football at our level is all about balance. Whether that be balancing the books, balancing success on the pitch with a structurally sound club or balancing young players with more experienced guys.

In came Mark Lunn, Ryan McGurk, Steven Kiczynski, Jamie Ewart, Peter McMahon, Graham Guy, John Dillon, Craig Anderson, Steven Bonar, Fraser McLaren, Jim Lister, Darren Gribben and David Grant. Andy McLean made the step up from the reserves along with Chris Anderson. The likes of Tommy Lennox, David Greenhill, Stuart Callaghan, Andy Howat were retained, alongside our most senior players in Ian Little and Robbie Horn.

Grant McNicoll and Gary Wood both decided not to sign contracts. Grant joined Arniston and Gary is rumoured to have joined the Police force.

We basically started the new season with an entirely new side. I only saw one pre-season friendly so the game against QOS in late July had me, and a few others, wondering who all the new players were. QOS did very last season and they had qualified for Europe this season, I didn't think we'd have a hope in hell. We didn't, they ran out comfortable 5-1 winners.

A week later we hosted Shire and put in a much improved performance with Darren Gribben and John Dillon putting us two goals up before they got their consolation. We lost at Ayr that midweek before travelling to Montrose to get a point out of a 1-1 draw. Right up until that point I thought we had a chance of doing something this season.

The cracks started to show and Dumbarton took advantage on 16th August with a 2-1 win. We then travelled up to Coatbridge on the Bank Holiday weekend to witness a shambles of a display, Albion winning 2-0 when it could easily have been much more.

A 2-2 draw against Forfar a week later breathed a little bit of hope back into the side. We had a week's break for Scotland-Macedonia which gave us a chance to re-group, but an awful game at Cowdenbeath on Saturday saw us lose 2-1. 

So that's where we are just now. It's not been a great start, the next few games are going to be crucial. We have Stenny on Saturday, more on that tomorrow! 

The Ducket Blog is Back!

Well after a four month absence, I've decided to get back to writing the blog. I've had various emails from fans across the country wondering why I had stopped updating it - I even had someone asking if I was still alive. And then this post appeared on P&B, with various messages of support. 

I started to think that people kind of relied on what I was writing. The club website is rarely updated and the Supporters Trust website rarely carries football stories. Although over the summer the Supporters Club website has popped up which is being updated on a regular basis.

Towards the back end of last season I had become increasingly disenchanted with everything at Shielfield Park, culminating in the relegation of the team and the sacking of Michael Renwick.

To be honest I lost a lot of interest in the club after our worst ever season. I was also struggling to get the time to write on here. I didn't want to continue with the Blog unless I could commit to updating it at least three times a week.

Tomorrow I'm going to round up all the things I've missed...