Peter’s Alloa lads have reached the end of another season but is this the year they finally topple Rangers?
“Light rain is on the light dust,
The grass of the Recreation pitch
Will be growing greener and greener,
But you, Sir, had better take Buckie ere your departure,
For you will have no fans about you
When you come to the gates of Ibrox.” – Rihaku or Omakitu.
We’re coming to the final straight of an epic season with our form fluttering between Superb and Okay. We still must play Rangers another 4 (four!) times before we can jet off to the Majorca poolside.
The threads are stretching and sheering of Rangers coattails as we grasp with all our might. Celtic are a good 11 points behind us in their own little world and enough of a buffer between ourselves.
If there’s a good enough omen to begin the final straight then it’s this. We’re equal on points now but several behind on goal difference.
CM9394 legend Joey is given a floppy disk guard of honour and he does not disappoint the fans. McGarth is only out for a week.
Yes, that’s Bert Kydd. He’s been on loan to Morton all season as I needed a bit of extra back up. He’s proving his point for 1st team status. A week later, Spurs swoop in and stash him in the reserves.
The front two are stuttering a little and wasteful is putting it very mildly. As a combination, they’re worth nearly £14million! Ofttimes, they’re not worth the paper the estimates are written on.
At the final whistle, the travelling fans tell me that the league title can be Shivuted up our backsides. Sports report tells me otherwise, as Rangers also lost. Never has Out of the Blue sounded so sweet.
We were both nervous about the impending Champions League clash. Going back to our trusted 3-3-1-2-1 formation and we grab and slim lead. Negri, the constant rusty sporran over our groins, bags an away goal.
McGrath, back from injury, lets it be known he still pulls on the gold shirt. Two quick penalties belie another poor performance.
As proved by our trip to Celtic part. We’re broken, bloodied and busted and that gap is slowly shrinking.
A Stirling effort all round and amazingly we’ve seen off them off! Put that up your kilt and sit on it, UEFA. “Jimmy Gordon! Dougie Grey! Sammy Cox! Terry Butcher! Can you hear me? You’re boys too one hell of a beating!” Barcelona up next!
We celebrate that by missing 17 chances with the usual MOTM award going to Dundee’s goalkeeper.
It’s Barcelona and we still can’t fill the ground. Amazingly, we score first. So giddy are we that Barcelona show how to actually ‘football’ in a professional way and score straight away. (I saw Steve Bull do that against Barcelona once too! A friendly match, obviously…). They’re too strong for us and grab another away goal.
Ah, this is the business. The best way to warm up for the second leg is with yet another drab encounter in front of the Partick goal. We’re dropping points in a big way to Celtic.
McGarth does himself no favours as the Green Men exact their revenge for the last 3 years. Yet again, another 3 points lost to Celtic who are catching us at a rate of knots.
Our constant drill bits in our retinas have the last laugh, however…
They win the title on our own soil…
We drag ourselves up from the sodden dirt and fly out to Spain. A draw in front of over 90,000 people! The entire squad have never seen so many people in one place. More people than Spike Island, I tell the lads. “Where’s that?” they respond. Is every generation dumber that it’s parents? Probably not, just the reference points are beyond the horizon. We almost grab an equaliser to take it to extra time but I think we’ve gone further than expected.
Still, our league form is woeful. And now, Celtic are level on points! Only 3 behind on goal difference! Mind the gap?? There is no gap! Their faces are pressed against the glass and want to come through.
Ferguson has recovered just in time to be introduced. And what an inspiration he is! 5 is now the goal difference!
So, onto the last match, and if ever there was a game to encapsulate the trite bi-polar nature of our season then this is it. We nearly throw it away in the last minute but Bazzer is the inspiration again. He finished the season with Played 4, Goals 5. Oh how we’ve missed him!
So there we have it. In that update, we only gained 18 points to Celtics 29. In the last 8 league matches, the record was W2 D3 L3. We escape the slip to 3rd by a goal difference of 4! Rangers did their best to give us a chance, but we threw it away. I need a lie down…
Och aye for now!