Stirling Albion 3-0 Alloa
On the back of last week’s Scottish Government announcement introducing further restrictions to battle the Covid-19 pandemic, the Club Academy Scotland fixtures were pushed back to the beginning of November.
The restriction on travel also curtailed our plans to host Hearts so instead Stirling Albion and Alloa arranged a very local derby among their Youth Academies. Both squads featured a combination of their respective 2003, 2004 and 2005 players but, only being able to field players born in the Forth Valley health district, this combined U16 and U18 match was as local a derby as you could get!
Stirling Albion started brightly in the midday sun but Alloa crept their way back into the match, serving up a very equal and competitive first half. The home side took the lead when James Petrie – who had already come close with an attempted lob – latched on to a cross from the left to finish convincingly.
The second half was predominantly dominated by the Binos, who added two further goals without return. New signing Jonny Mair danced round the goalkeeper to double the hosts’ lead before Ross Pincombe added a third. Having faked to shoot on his left, Pincombe cut back on to his right foot and calmly scored the final goal of the match.
Three great goals accompanied a very good performance from the Stirling Albion youngsters and gave U18 Coach Shaun Conlon, who oversaw the fixture, a lot to be happy about.
Shaun said: “The biggest compliment I can give to everyone was that I enjoyed watching us play, everyone played their part in a deserved win. The boys worked hard and showed a lot of good quality on the ball, scoring three cracking goals. A special well done to Ross Pincombe, Finlay Barr and Thomas Reilly, on their first game for the U18s.”
