Saturday 16th March 2024 ko 11:15

East of Scotland League- Premier Division

LUNCARTY 5 (Woolley 21 McLaughlin 32 Davies 34 40p Scarborough 84)

CROSSGATES PRIMROSE 3 (Sutherland 3 Muirhead 31 77)

Att 386

Entry £7

Programme £2

There are so many reasons to love the Scottish Hop. For me though there’s far more to it than just the chance to visit new places and to put more ticks in my imaginary black book. One of the great joys is the time I get to spend with Davie Baxter, secretary of the league. It’s got to a point where I arm myself with a couple of hopefully erudite questions to ask him. And this year the question was one of boundaries.

It was and is thus, where does the Lowland League footprint end and the Highland League’s start? I’d always imagined the River Tay, making Jeanfield Swifts’ Riverside home the closest we’d ever get to a Highland League event without ever holding one!

But Davie set me straight, the boundary was meant to be a line drawn east to west across the middle of the Tay Bridge but that created a problem, draw that line and the line runs through Luncarty village, with Brownfields Park to the north of it. It’s a good job the line isn’t there, there’s no point in going where we aren’t wanted! And as Davie rather ruefully put it, the whole boundary idea was scuppered when the SPFL decided that “Club 42” the club relegated from League 2 can decide where they’ll play next, Lowland or Highland! I must admit I did try to imagine Elgin City asking to play in the Lowland League!

We were more than aware of the impact the weather might have, and in the end the policy ended up listening to the 4 host clubs that day and to Chris Garrett. Who’s Chris? He’s both a groundhopper and a meteorologist so understood both our worries and what we were looking for. He got it right, the rains came during the second half at Jeanfield, and by that stage we’d visited the two clubs with little or no cover.

So Craig, Robyn and I set out around an hour before the coach, as the advanced party, mainly to distribute programme packs but to offer help where needed- it wasn’t! It did seem odd reaching Perth, then heading still further north, I remembered my travails in seeing a game at Wick Academy where I stayed in Perth and saw the places as the gateway to the Highlands. Brownfields Park is another 6 miles north from the Broxden Travelodge I’d used as a base. The area grew in the late 19th century around what came one of Britain’s largest bleachworks, for use in the textile industry. The works closed in 1996, but the football club’s nickname remembers the area’s past.

I must admit I rather fell in love with the ground, I know Robyn loves a grass bank to sit on, not advisable on this occcasion, but the sight of trains rumbling on the embankment bound for Inverness did evoke last years hop at Dunbar United even down to hoppers checking online time tables! But there was so much to like about Luncarty the club too. Yes, I did check I was pronouncing the name correctly (Lun-kirty hopefully!) and yes I did make sure I tried one of their steak pies, produced by a local butcher. Pie for breakfast, why not?

But what everyone will have seen is a friendly, outward looking club doing their absolute best to make the most of their couple of hours in the spotlight. It utterly belied their precarious position in the division, although Crossgates are also in danger of relegation. The game lived up to the hosting, in that rariety where two struggling sides compliment each other’s weaknesses. The goals flowed, and in a sense it was a real shame it all had to end. Especially those hoppers who’d missed the train shot, and were hoping the game could stretch to the next one… sorry lads!