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As the squad prepare for tomorrow morning’s friendly against Ugandans Lil Endevourers, the club is delighted to announce that Korean IV League side heeraegy have accepted our invitation and will visit New Home Park on Saturday for our first weekend friendly match.
“We sent out a lot of invitations yesterday, and to be honest we’re surprised to have got the match fixed up so easily”, admitted Kyle Fair. “We weren’t sure how things would pan out, but when we got confirmation this morning, all our worries were unfounded”.
Hailing from Busan, heeraegy were formed less than a month ago, but despite this managed to finish the season in third place in their league, just six points behind the champions.
“These extra matches over the next two weekends will give us the opportunity to try out new formations and line-ups”, said Marcus after training. “We’ll use these games to run through ideas we’ve got, ahead of the start of the new season”.
The match on Saturday kicks-off at 16:30 BST, while fans are reminded that tomorrows match with Lil Endevourers starts at 10:30 BST.
Leoš Loos watches on as his curling shot hits the net to level the scores.
But it wasn’t all plain sailing for the home side, as they had to fight back after Darren Urquhart had stunned them with an eleventh minute opener for the visitors.
It took until the thirty-fourth minute for Brook Street to draw level through Leoš Loos, but within a further six minute, Brook Street were 3-1 up and Leoš had completed his hat-trick.
It was 3-1 at the break, but Rovers were far from out of it, and they pulled a goal back seven minutes into the second half with a powerful Olav Gruber-Veit header.
The game raged from end to end providing outstanding entertainment for the fans, and despite having two gilt-edged chances, Rovers could find no way past Ezequiel Alexandrino again, who was in sparkling form.
These misses were to prove costly in the last nine minutes of the game when first Andrew Cleary, who had come on for hat-trick hero Loos after an hour, struck to restore our two-goal lead.
A minute later and it was 5-2 as Eyüphan slammed home his opening goal, and two further minutes later Eyüphan fired home from a tight angle to complete the scoring.
Eyüphan’s second half brace ensured that the Turkish striker would finish the season as the division’s top scorer, while Leoš Loos’ hat-trick saw him finish third.
“It’s a great achievement to have two of the top three scorers in the division, but it just shows how tight this league is that we’ve only finished in fourth place”, admitted Marcus afterwards.
“I’m obviously delighted that we’ve got a top-four finish, but at the same time disappointed that our challenge faltered so badly this season”, he added.
“That aside, it’s not been an altogether bad season, and it has seen Andrew Cleary earn an Under-20 cap for Scotland”.
Turning to this afternoon’s game he continued, “Andrew took his goal very well this afternoon and showed just how much he has progressed this season.
“We are very potent up top, and the fact that all three of our strikers found the net today proves that, but we’ve got to tighten things up at the back if we’re to make progress”.
“We’ve dropped silly points this season and that’s something we’ll be working to eradicate before the start of the new season”.
He concluded, by saying, “The fans have had a bit of a rough season, but I’d like to thank every one of them who stuck by us”.
“Finally, I’d just like to wish Carbrain FC, Vines Cross and Airth Castle Rovers the very best of luck in their respective play-offs next weekend”.
Lloyd Stephen scores one of his five Scottish Cup goals.
Lloyd made a total of eleven first team appearances for the club, scoring five Scottish Cup goals in the process, but failed to make the breakthrough into the first team in the four seasons he was in the senior squad.
With a good crop of youngsters poised to promote from the Academy, the decision was made to let Lloyd go, and we wish him the very best of luck with his new club.
Ugandan League 2 side Lil Endevourers will visit New Home Park for an international friendly next week it was confirmed this evening.
The game will be played on Wednesday morning with a 10:30 kick-off. Our thanks once again go to peter_arts for making the match possible.
The reserves ran out comfortable 4-0 winners against Challenger Athletic FC in Siparia, Trinidad this evening.
The match was all but over by half-time with Brook Street 3-0 up courtesy of goals from Fraser Carragher, Garabed Palasyan and Muhammad Noorani, and it was killed stone-dead nine minutes after the break when Muhammad added his second of the game.
“We were very professional and got the win I think our performance merited”, said Marcus at full-time.
Ezequiel Alexandrino dives to prevent Carbrain increasing their lead.
While they can look forward to hopefully securing a favourable draw in the League 2 play-offs, it was despair at the weekend for fans of both Real Forfar and -*FC BARCELONA*- who saw their sides relegated.
However, the matter of the relegation play-off places remains undecided, and it couldn’t be tighter with goal difference separating the remaining five sides.
Speaking after the defeat at Ravenswood, Marcus first of all congratulated Carbrain on their title win. “They’re a formidable team, and thoroughly deserved the Championship”.
He continued, “This Division is a particularly strong one, the fact that everyone can beat everyone else bears testimony to that. It takes a very good team to string a sequence of results together to lift the title, and they’ve managed it for two seasons in a row. That shows just how good they are”.
“They were very unfortunate to lose their play-off last season and will be looking for better luck this time. We’ll have our fingers crossed for them too”.
Turning to Saturday’s defeat Marcus said, “They hit us early on and the game was over by half-time. Now we’ve got to dust ourselves down and be ready to go in what could be a nail-biting ninety minutes next Saturday”.
He added, “I’ve never known a league to be this tight, and it could come down to goal difference at the end of the day. We’re fortunate in that we have home advantage, but Airth Castle are three games unbeaten and have won the previous two encounters between the sides, so it’s going to be tight”.
The reserves will travel to Trinidad and Tobago this week to face Challenger Athletic FC in an international friendly match on Wednesday.
The match is scheduled to kick off at 17:20 AST (22:20 BST) at the Challenger Athletic Arena in Siparia.
Thanks for arranging the match go to peter_arts once again.
Andrew Cleary netted a hat-trick.
Andrew scored another two to complete his hat-trick, Zsolt bagged his second of the game and there were singles for Matt Cocker and Muhammad Noorani.
“We could do no wrong out there this evening”, admitted Marcus at full-time. “We played some great stuff and showed a real hunger out there. We showed the desire to win and we also tried a few moves we’ve been working on in training”.
He continued, “Everything move we tried seemed to work, and for a confidence boost ahead of Saturday, we couldn’t have asked for more.
All the players came through the match unscathed, but it is unknown whether Andrew Cleary will feature for Scotland’s U-20s against India U-20 tomorrow. At present however, the coach is looking at having a full squad to select from for Saturday’s match at Ravenswood.
Jake MacConnechy watches as his shot hits the net to make the score 1-1.
The draw means that we must win both our remaining matches while hoping that Kessler’s and Carbrain both drop points, and with the two meeting at Villiers Park on the final day of the season, it is set up to be a grandstand finish.
After the match this afternoon, Marcus said, “We’re bitterly disappointed to have thrown away two points. We were in a match-winning position, but lapses in concentration have cost us”.
He continued, “We could have gone into next week’s match against Carbrain with our destiny in our own hands, but now we’re going to be reliant on other results too”.
Kessler’s had opened the scoring in the eighth minute, but Jake MacConnechy levelled eight minutes later. Brook Street stormed into the lead with two goals in a minute when first Abel Soffia and then Leoš Loos found the net in the sixty-sixth and sixty-seventh minutes respectively.
Then, with eleven minutes left, Fabio Staricco pulled a goal back and Corrado Merciadri completed the comeback seven minutes from time.
Elsewhere, in addition to EK Tuggers unexpected 4-3 win over Carbrain, it was honours-even in both the other games. Vines Cross and Airth Castle Rovers tied 2-2, while -*FC BARCELONA*- and Real Forfar drew 1-1.
Brook Street’s Scotland U-20 Internationalist Andrew Cleary.
Yemen had had Udant Shah ordered off in the twenty-second minute, but it took a further eleven minutes for the young Scots to open the scoring through Real Gnoccofritto’s striker Pat Claverhill. Midfielder John McPherson added the second a minute later before Andrew opened his account five minutes before the break.
The second half saw Scotland continue to dominate, but squander a number of chances before Andrew fired in his second of the game with four minutes remaining.
Congratulations from everyone at the club!
This is Brook Street 