Stirling 1 Elgin 0

Sean Dickson grabbed a dramatic 93rd-minute winner to earn us a precious win against promotion-chasing Elgin on Tuesday evening.

A keenly-contested encounter – postponed from January 21– looked set to finish all square until Dickson did well to win the ball some 20 yards out and fire home a low drive which appeared to take a slight deflection before going in off the post.

It was the midfielder’s sixth goal of the season and the last four have all come in the 88th minute or later. The win moves us up to sixth in the Ladbrokes League 2 table and means we are 11 points clear of bottom club Cowdenbeath, who we face at Central Park on Saturday.

Elgin arrived on a cold night at Forthbank having gone seven games without defeat and having scored more goals than anyone other than Celtic but they missed top scorer Shane Sutherland.

Binos boss Dave Mackay had to do without seven players through injury – Ross McMillan, Darren Petrie, Willie Robertson, Jack McCue, Andy Little, Callumn Morrison and Josh Jeffries were all ruled out.

There was a debut for U20 player Connor McMullan and he showed up well alongside Andy Black and Dickson in the centre of the park. Liam Caddis was excellent at right-back but this was a real team performance.

Albion looked up for it right from the start and restricted Elgin to not a chance of note in the first half, while Ross Kavanagh came close just before the break when Cammy Mackay made a good save after the striker got on the end of a superb Caddis pass.

The visitors almost took the lead within 60 seconds of the restart but Mark Nicolson’s header came back off the post then they had penalty appeals waved away when Darryl McHardy felt he was held.

Blair Henderson had an effort cleared off the line at the other end and McHardy headed over from a corner as an even match seemed set to end goalless until Dickson showed great desire to win the ball outside the box and fire home the winner to make it eight points out of the last 12 for the Binos.

Stirling Albion: C Smith, Caddis, McGeachie, Forsyth, R Smith, Black, McMullan, Dickson, McLaren (D Smith 57), Henderson (Johnstone 77), Kavanagh.
Subs (not used): Binnie (GK), Quigley, Colquhoun, Wright, Docherty.

Goal: Dickson 90+3

Elgin City: Mackay, Cooper, MacPhee, McHardy, Brownlie, Reilly (Sutherland 75) Dodd, Nicolson, Gunn (McLeish 66) Cameron, Moore (Stewart 80).
Subs (not used): Waters (GK), Reid, Smith.

Referee: Craig Napier

Crowd: 412