So that was a quick introduction to SESL - 2 games against BER from a higher Division in the first Cup competition of the season. 2 games later and FOR are out. Are we unhappy - you betcha!!

The first game at chilly Shielfield we gained the lead and promptly gave up 2 goals whilst we were congratulating ourselves. Still, a 1 goal loss isn't bad and we did score an away goal.

Today we settled on a more upbeat side and took the game immediately to Berwick, who had a yellow card before half the crowd had settled into their pies.

Facing a Stall set up so early in the game didn't help us, but we perservered to no avail, even after BER changed to a normal tactic around the hour mark. We had lots of possession but huffed and puffed all day but ended up with a 0-0 scoreline.

So it is good luck to Berwick in the draw tonight - hardly worth while attending if I am not in the hat

Now for the bread and butter league matches and a home game v Fraserburgh and a trip to face my first ever club in SESL, East Fife.

Cheers,

Where Stirling had the hope to be in the draw for the 1st round of the CECIL cup after the first game. Is that hope now completely gone.
The first game which ended in a 2-2 draw was followed by an 0-3 defeat to Queens Park. It's absolutely clear that the Stirling is not as competitive as manager Wilkens would like to be

*** Stirling Press ***

Stirling made a trade this week, that shocked SESL. Some people said manager Wilkens paid to much, but as part of rebuilding the team and still trying to get a good league position, you sometime have to pay some more to get what you.

Murdo McLean (4/23 DM) moved for 12 TP from Hibernian to Stirling, Murdo was pleased to get a chance to play again. Also John Robertson (6/15 MF) made a move to Stirling coming from Hearts.

Participation Bonus money has been posted on the blog!

Clyde & Calvin

CB PRESS
=============

Start of a new season and the start of year 1 of our continuing 2 year plan.

Good Start
----------------
Yes a great start by the Bankies as we guide the team into the next round of the cup and register a full 6 out of 6 in the first league games.

The biggest issue is going to be our ability to maintain the level required to stay up here, as again we find ourselves with one of the lowest T11s and the absolute lowest T17 (usually a better indicator of squad strength).

The target for this year has to be to finish higher than last year - which was helped by a huge surge in the latter half of the season as all our investment in the youngsters paid off and they started to show some silky skills on the field to push us ever higher. This also resulted in a resonable cup run too.

I think its too much to hope for our cup run to continue at the start of the sseason as we use the cups to train a number of our younger players so we have to sacrifice the top players positions in the team. Hopefully however this will pay off in the league for the coming weeks.

My predictions for next week?

BER in the cup - a draw perhaps as we try to train as many youngsters as possible and just hold on as much as we can.

FOR league game - again a draw, A tough team, but some decent defensive tactics should see us hold the point.

MOT league game - a team with similar stats to us, I hope to edge the win, but wont be too disappointed with the draw.

GMcD.

So the first 2 league matches are over and a bit of an anti-climax in that FRA played passive (not sure if from choice or NMR. Either way it weakened what looked like a very useful team. I blooded a new keeper in front of a fair defence and it worked with us getting a 1-0 half time lead. Second half with substitutions we were able to add a further 2 goals to get a fair start to the campaign.

East Fife came out firing in the 2nd match and opened early. However we equalised shortly afterwards and the talking point was the soft penalty award to FOR about 10 minutes from the end would have given us 6 points from 6 if Aspinall had converted. Keeper saved (Portugal v England all over again!!) and we were lesft with a 1-1 draw in what was a fair result on the stats.

Happy with 4 points and now 2 home games to earn some pennies - firstly against CB (6 points) and then AI (3 points). We have to make them count.

Not a very good start to the regular season for ROS," said Manager Len Lear. Only 1 point out of 6. We fully expected to take 4 out of the 6. We were lucky to get the draw vs. MOT in the opener and I am still scratching my head after the weird result vs. SRA.
We were the stronger team and stats for the match were rather even but we ended up on the wrong side of a 3 - nil result."
" This coming week proves that things aren't getting any easier for ROS. We have a Cup match vs. ALO. Ricky's teams are always tough to play against. Then our 1st league match of the week is versus SM. This is the side that I pick to win the D-3 title this season. Jackie is doing an outstanding job with her club. I am not looking forward to this match. Our second match is against MON. Despite their slow start in the first two matches of the season, MON will rebound, This is going to be a dangerous match for ROS."
ROS truly hopes to get a 3 outof a possible 6 points this week. ...and a possible Cup win.

I'm guessing the threat of the postman delivering the mice heads was too much....

GMcD

EST has a good competition start, but not great

East Stirlingshire is back into competition, under the heads of manager Matthijs Bijlsma. The team wants to compete and it proved in the first two division 3-matches that they will. A 2-0 won over Elgin City and a draw against Greenock Morton. After looking at the past couple of years no one is watching EST to play well and gather some points. But if they say that, they didn't look at the team at the start of this year. Only two new players on the team, but the young tem of last year is now much more experienced.

Elgin City vs. East Stirlinghsire

A first match is always an important match. If you get the first three point you are directly into competition. Bijlsma really wanted the win: "I want to prove with this match that the period that only losers came to visit my boys is over." Clear language from the Dutchman. But Elgin played well with a less quality team. Superstriker Klaas Jan Huntelaar was under control the whole match and he had a lot of trouble with ELG-defender Dan Fitzgerald.

But still EST had a 1-0 lead at the mid-time break. A goal from the other striker, Steven Dymock, did the trick. But the applause must have been for the great action and pass of Czech-defender Zdenek Grygera. In the second half Bijlsma made the descision to get Huntelaar off, and bring fellow country-man Ryan Babel into the team. He only needed ten minutes to score the descicive goal.

Bijlsma was asked afterward about his golden substitution: "It's not only Ryan that made the difference. I overall think we can be happy with the team performance. Some players were better then the other. But in another match we can see that players being better."

East Stirlingshire vs. Greenock Morton

Not only the first match of the season is important. Also the first match on home soil. But it didn't worked out this way. EST really deserved the win. You can take the stats with it. And then it's incredible the team didn't win. And don't only look at the six missed chances. Also at ball posession.

Bijlsma: "I'm angry, really angry. Against Elgin we played so well and then you get this lousy performance. After the first weekend we had to be on top with six points. It looks like they WANT to fall back on their poor performances of the last seasons. There is going to be talked about in the dressing room right now. Maybe an extra training this week!!! Grrrr..."

ROS is thrilled with their performance in the Cup to-date.
Our 4 - nil victory over ALO this week was definitely our best match of the season so far. ROS has made some deals to add to the depth of the club and our strike force is looking good this early in the season. However it is a long season. I just hope our ROS lads can hold things together and go as far as we can in the Cecil Cup and finish in the middle of the pack in D-3.

Participation Bonus has been posted on the blog....

ROS Press

"Wow" was the reaction of ROS Manager Len Lear after seeing the SM squad demolish his ROS side 3 - nil." " I can't believe how good the SM squad is. We got soundly thrashed. It is something to see a D-3 squad with an average SL in their starting 11 of about 25 or 26. ROS is sure glad they don't have to play them again for awhile."
In ROS's 2nd match of the week versus MON, Lear promised ROS supporters that his squad will be coming at MON with everything they had and sure enough they did with a 6 -1 win. Gordon Strachen and Davie Winters led ROS again with Winters receing the MOM. Lear stated afterwards, " I was happy with this match and our performances this week. We got the expected results and came away with the three out of 6 points. Also, after playing MON, I felt that MON should not be written off, Once they get their early season defensive problems straightened away, the MON side will be very good."
This week, ROS plays the 2nd match of their Cup series against D-1, ALO. with a 4 goal lead. The big question here that worries me is what will ALO do, knowing they are currently in the relegation zone in D-1. Will they continue to concentrate on league play or will they put their top 11 against us and try and come back from being down by 4. We shall soon see!
Concluding another busy week sees ROS taking on EST and BRE. Lear said about these matches, we feel that we can take the 6 out of 6 points. Also our schedule helps having already played 3 of the top 4 D-3 sides. This helps us in our Cup play."

Motherwell were in scintillating form in this weekends Session of league matches . First up was a home tie against a very weak East Fife team who were ruthlessly dispatched 5-0 (and that was kind). They turned up with a poor keeper & dodgy defence & we duly punished them!
Next up was a visit to Big Mac's Bankies. 2nd against 3rd promised to be a tight affair ,which it was & our 6 man defence did its job limiting the Bankies strikers to just 1 shot which was comfortably dealt with by the keeper.
Well's lone striker Scott Macdonald caused considerable havoc for the Bankies defence scoring one goal & having another shot turned against the post for Phil o'Donnel to slot home ! So its 2nd place & 10 points after 4 games , with only classy St Mirren heading the WELL.
September the 2nd sees St Mirren visit the Well. This could be a Very important clue as to who is going to win Division 3 this season ...Bring it on Jackie!!

Now we know how much work there is to be done to get near a play off spot, as FOR gave up 2 home games to mis reading substitution tactics, which meant in the matches versus CLB and AI we didn't get the big boys in at half time and we soldered on to the end with the raw recruits.

It would not have mattered against CLB who gave us a drubbing 4-0, but against AI it could and probably would have given us a better scoreline than 1-2.

So this early we are facing an uphill struggle for respectability and will use the matches to get the team in a better shape for the end of season and the SESL Cup, especially the "0"s and "1" players who will benefit from a regular run out till they get their full PU totals.

It could have been better.....

CB PRESS
===============

Four matches down and three with full points. Cant be too unhappy with that I suppose. Unfortunately I'm a bit irked at MOT pulling the full three away from us. In the end though the MOT 17 man defence was a match for our 4 man attack and a goal in each half by the men from the 'well was enough to grab the full set of three.

Next up Berwick in the cup - a match which in theory they should have walked with, but methinks they were distracted by the league and not really focused on the cup, and so we sneaked it from them with the "surprise" tactic of Press in the first leg (I say surprise and it really was as I hadnt noticed I'd put it on Press when I set the lineup - that could have been an expensive mistake )

The third division is pretty much a dead cert for Saint Mirren to pull down and on recent form I guess that means the rest of us are grasping for the scraps of the playoff spots. My predictions for the teams in the playoff spots are (in no particular order):-

MOT
SRA
GRE
AI
RR

Fairly easy pick as the only teams with two wins from the four games and 7 points from 12, but there may be a surge from almost any of the boys on 5 points.

I hope the bankie boys can retain recent form to be in there at the end....however with the T11 & T17 values compared to the rest if the league I think it'll be a tough call, tough I expect to finish higher than last year.

Fence sitting - isnt it great!

GMcD.