Friday 15th March 2024 ko 19:45

East of Scotland League Division Two

ARMADALE THISTLE 3 (Jackson 13 Strickland 84 Wood 86)

ORMISTON PRIMROSE 2 (Adrian 11 43)

Att 436

Entry £6

Programme £2

Ridin’ on the highway,

Goin’ to a show 
Stop in all the byways
Playin’ rock ‘n’ roll…

I tell you, folks
It’s harder than it looks

Bon Scott 1975

The coach had already been on the road for over 4 hours before it reached Robyn and I in Lewknor. From Cardiff to Perth via London isn’t most folks’ idea of normal, but I don’t think there’s too many folks who think us hoppers are entirely sane…

I felt under certain amount of pressure for this hop. Part of it was the loss of the two Blackpool games on the North West Counties Hop, we really didn’t want to lose a game on each of the last three hops. But much more than that, was where were heading.

Perth represented as far north as GroundhopUK have ever been, so getting the 3 Perth-area games on was important, how on earth would we ever be able to fit in a return to a single club? The elephant in the room was and always will be the Highland League. We know how much the hoppers would love to head there, but we know how set against the idea that league is. I can still hear the comment,

“You’d only attract the same amount (25) you get on the Swedish Hop”

That hurt, I help organise that hop too, so the need to do well when we’d have games right on the border of the league wasn’t lost on me, even if I’m completely comfortable with the idea that we’ll never see an organised hop in their league. Never has the River Tay, nominally the border between the Highland and Lowland League seemed quite so stark!

That was with the background of the weather continuing to be dreadful, so the opening game being on 3G did offer a sense of respite! I must admit my only other visit to the West Lothian town of Armadale was for speedway, for now the Edinburgh Monarchs are based at Armadale Stadium. We passed by there, but in sporting terms football should be seen as the more important sport, Armadale FC played Scottish League football at Volunteer Park from 1921 to 1932.

The Volley shows no end of signs of that history even if the playing surface is modern. The ground started life in 1880 as the training ground of the C Company Volunteer Battalion Royal Scots making the ground one of the oldest in Scotland. A year later Armadale Star FC were granted use of the park provided they joined the Volunteers. They did and changed their name to Armadale Volunteers FC. The ground became the home of Armadale FC in September 1889. 

Armadale FC were bankrupted in 1932 over a £50 debt to Raith Rovers and the remnants of the club became Armadale Thistle who joined the Junior ranks, and took on Volunteer Park. The club became mainstays of both the East Region Juniors, and Junior football in general. In 2021 the club were one of the last clubs in the East Region to make the switch to the Senior ranks, which explains why they’re in the comparatively lowly Division 2. They had one season in the East of Scotland’s Conference X (extra) then finished runners up in last season’s Division 3.

This game saw Thistle in second place take on Ormiston who we’d visited on the 2017 hop. Now with the Primrose suffix happily reinstated, they were second from bottom but gave their hosts a real fright before two late goals saw the tie go the way of the form book.

Elsewhere the club sold a quite bewildering array of pies, including the one they claim to have invented- the doner kebab pie. While I’ll always hanker after something other than pastry, I do recognise its part of Scottish football culture so I took my place in the queue for the pie hut. Rude not to really….