— Upcoming fixtures
H Sat 15th Jan, 2022
A Thu 20th Jan, 2022 Hibernian v Cove Rangers The Scottish Cup
— League table
50/50 WINNER!
The 50/50 winner at the Alloa match was Paul Tierney. The winning number was 098247.
Cove Rangers FC
Balmoral Stadium
Wellington Circle, Altens
Aberdeen, AB12 3JG
Honorary President
Alan McRae
Directors
Keith Moorhouse - Chairman
Graeme Reid - Vice Chairman/Financial Controller
Duncan Little - Secretary/Stadium Manager
John Sheran - Director of Football
Darren Anderson
Grant Moorhouse
Safety Officers
John Morgan & Bill Ogilvie
Committee
Michael Coull, Richard Forbes & Gordon Taylor
Football Manager - Paul Hartley
Assistant Manager - Gordon Young
Fitness Coach - Tam Ritchie
Goalkeeping Coach - Derek Soutar
Head of Youth Development - Gary Hake
Performance Analyst - Ryan Docherty
Physios - Donal Gallacher & Eilidh McGregor
Kit Manager - Adrian Thomson
Club Doctor - David Fowler
Commercial Manager - Angela Bruce
Media Officer - Charlie Allan
Child Wellbeing and Protection Officer - Kate Dean
Club Chaplain - Dougie Simpson
Club Photographers - Dave Cowe, Richard Forbes
cinch League One
Saturday December 18th @ Balmoral Stadium
COVE RANGERS 3
ALLOA ATHLETIC 0
CHRISTMAS NUMBER ONE
Jamie Masson’s wonder strike sent us on the road to a third successive 3-0 victory, with this one over the Wasps ensuring we will celebrate Christmas sitting proudly on top of cinch League One.
Rory McAllister made it 2-0 from the penalty spot, with Mitch Megginson then trying to outdo Masson in the goal-of-the-afternoon stakes with a stunner to complete the scoring.
There were fears the match might not go ahead as freezing fog enveloped Balmoral Stadium and made visibility poor.
Well done to referee Steven Reid for choosing to delay making a final decision over whether to play on, because it meant the 585 fans inside the stadium – including a noisy group from Alloa in fancy dress –could enjoy a highly entertaining game.
Alloa made the brighter start, with Stuart McKenzie having to hold a 20-yard shot from Mouhamed Niang after just two minutes.
Scott Ross and Harry Milne also had to make vital penalty box interceptions, the latter after Steven Boyd had made a great run into our box, as Alloa continued to threaten.
It took a bad tackle from Mark Dornan on Iain Vigurs in the 15th minute to finally spark us into life.
Dornan was fortunate to escape with only a lecture from referee Reid because the injury suffered by Vigurs meant he had had to be replaced by Leighton McIntosh.
Fraser Fyvie, who was voted man-of-the-match by sponsor Ian McIntosh, took the resulting free-kick and Alloa keeper David Hutton had to dive low to his left to push away the midfielder’s 25-yard effort.
McIntosh broke down the right in the 28th minute to send in a cross that was dummied by McAllister before Megginson saw his six-yard shot blocked by a defender.
Ross then played a clever one-two with Blair Yule as he broke forward and Hutton did well to grab the defender’s cross before it got to McAllister.
We went ahead in the 41st minute – and it was the latest in a long run of crackers scored in recent weeks.
Yule played the ball forward to McAllister and when he laid it perfectly back into the path of MASSON he curled it home spectacularly from 20-yards to send the Cove Rangers fans into raptures.
The second half was just 15 seconds old when Niang was booked for a late challenge on Fyvie, who thankfully was able to continue. We had a penalty appeal turned away in the 51st minute, when McIntosh appeared to be shoved in the back as he attempted to control a cross from Masson.
Within a minute, McIntosh fed the ball in from the right for Fyvie to lash a 20-yard shot wide of the target. Megginson hit a snapshot wide from the edge of the area as we kept up the pressure on the Alloa defence.
We were awarded a penalty just on the hour, when McIntosh was tripped by a defender, although the referee seemed to consult nearside assistant Alistair Mather before pointing to the spot.
McALLISTER did his usual professional job from the spot, sending Hutton the wrong way to claim his 15th goal of the campaign.
MEGGINSON finished the afternoon off in perfect fashion by also netting his 15th goal of the season, in the 84th minute.
His was arguably the best of the lot, coming on the end of a sweeping passing move that finished with Yule’s pass to substitute Fin Robertson being laid off for Megginson to deftly curl a shot from just inside the area that gave the diving Hutton no chance.
Aye, Santa has certainly come early if you are a Cove Rangers fan!
Cove Rangers: McKenzie, Neill, Milne, Scully, Ross, Yule, Megginson, Masson (Leitch 87), McAllister (Robertson 73), Vigurs (McIntosh 15), Fyvie.
Subs: Anderson, Adeyemo, Gourlay.
Alloa Athletic: Hutton, Taggart, Graham, Robertson, Durnan, Gilmour, Cawley (King 73), Niang, Boyd, Scougall (Sammon 60), Henderson.
Subs: Burt, Mendy, O’Donnell, Church, Leighton.
Referee: Steven Reid.
Jamie Masson insists there is no chance of anyone at Cove Rangers getting carried away because are sitting at the top of cinch League One.
Jamie opened the scoring in the 3-0 victory over Alloa Athletic at Balmoral Stadium that saw us open up a five point lead over second-placed Montrose.
But the midfielder accepts there is still a lot of hard work ahead because we are only at the half-way point of our league campaign.
Jamie said: “It will be hard to stay in top spot with everyone chasing us, but we just need to keep our heads. It’s the old line about taking it a game at a time. People maybe don’t like to hear us talk like that, but from the first day I joined Cove it’s always been the attitude. If you do anything else there is a bigger danger of you not being successful.”
Jamie is pleased we gave our fans an extra reason to be cheerful on Christmas Day with the win over Alloa.
“I hope our fans had a merry and safe Christmas,” he said. “They have been absolutely amazing since the start of the season.”
“We have really appreciated the way they have made themselves heard at every game, especially in recent weeks, when they had to do a lot of travelling in poor conditions.”
ALLOA REACTION
“They are brilliant at Balmoral Stadium too. I love the banter you get when you are taking corners or throw-ins.”
“I always have a laugh with them, they are a great bunch. All of the players speak about that, we really appreciate how much they get behind us and hopefully we will be able to continue making them happy as we move through the season.”
Jamie, whose goal against Alloa was his fourth of the campaign, continued : “There is a good momentum at the club just now going into each game.”
“I don’t think we played that well this time, but we still came away with a clean sheet and three goals, which is always great. We are feeling very confident and, even though we have some very tough fixtures coming up, we are really looking forward to them.”
Jamie praised striker Rory McAllister for the part he played setting up the opener against Alloa.
“The lay-off from Rory was perfect and I could see I had a chance to shoot, so just wrapped my foot around it and hit it,” he said.
“I was buzzing when I saw the ball hit the net, even more so because it settled us after they (Alloa) had started the game pretty strongly. Everyone knows how great a goal scorer Rory is, but he is a fantastic team player too. He works hard and lays balls off to create chances for others all of the time.”
“Rory obviously knows where the net is too, he’s been scoring loads for a number of years now, but he’s brilliant to play with because he helps get the best out of us too.”
FRASER FYVIE
With our cinch League One campaign now at the halfway point, we asked midfielder FRASER FYVIE to share his thoughts on how the season has gone so far.
Former Aberdeen, Wigan Athletic, Hibernian and Dundee United player Fraser praised manager Paul Hartley and the club’s entire backroom staff for the parts they have played to ensure we are going into this afternoon’s home meeting with East Fife leading the league table.
Fraser, who was voted man-of-the-match in our 3-0 win over Alloa Athletic last weekend, also speaks about how enjoyable it is playing for Cove Rangers at the moment.
And he looks forward to next month’s Scottish Cup clash with his old club Hibernian down at Easter Road.
—
We have come through a tough run of fixtures in November and December, how have you been coping with that?
We have handled it because we are always prepared properly for the challenges ahead of us.
The majority of the squad are fit at this crucial stage of the season and we are gelling at just the right time. Huge praise must go to the manager and his staff for that.
They said a while ago that we were still four or five weeks away from being at the levels they would like us to be at because our pre-season preparations had been disrupted.
They made sure our training was done just right to ensure we could step up our fitness levels but also still compete in what is a very tough league.
The way we played against Alloa was a testament to all of the hard work they have done on our behalf. It was a good team performance, we dug out a really impressive result against one of the best organised sides in our division.
That was despite having come through a really busy run of tough games. We couldn’t have done that without the effort put in by all of the coaching team since the start of the season.
Assistant manager Gordon Young praised the players because the win over alloa meant we had picked up more points in the second quarter of the league campaign than the first, what are your thoughts on that?
It was good to hear that, but it won’t change our approach going into the next quarter.
Our aim is the same every week, we want to win every game. It’s what the management drill into us every week at training and they set us up with the aim to go out there and win every time.
It’s what we, as players, want to do too. You never go into any game thinking maybe a draw would be good, even if it’s away from home against one of your nearest challengers.
Winning is everything to us. It’s the best way to be, as a club and as individuals. You also have to be respectful to opponents and treat every game the same. That will certainly be the case against East Fife.
They were the last side to beat us, which is warning enough. We are determined to come out on top this time, but accept that we will have maintain high standards if that is to happen.
How happy are you to be leading cinch League One at the half way stage, despite the fact Cove Rangers are a part-time club?
From the outside looking in that might look like a big achievement.
But I can tell you from my own experiences in the game that Cove Rangers are not like any other parttime club.
From the chairman, the manager right through, they behave like a full-time club. I’ve been at full-time clubs where I haven’t been as well looked after as the players are at Cove Rangers.
You ask any of our boys and they will say the same thing. Cove Rangers do everything that full-time clubs do and all of the staff do what is asked of them brilliantly as well.
I’m not just talking about the chairman or management team there. You also have to include our match analyst, the physios and medical staff, those who look after our kits and training gear, everyone at the club.
Everyone is made to feel valued and that has created a strong bond among all of us and that is really important at a football club.
— Fyvie: Our Season So Far
We went into Christmas undefeated in 11 league and cup games, how did you feel about that?
It’s been a joy to be part of such a good run.
Even more so because I’ve known a lot of the boys in our squad since I was a youngster, just starting out with Aberdeen. The bulk of us were training with their youth teams, whether it be a year down or a year up.
Ryan Strachan was three years older and Rory McAllister dropped out at Aberdeen as I came in and most of the others were my team-mates at one time or another. We all know each other very well and it really helps when you have such a close knit group at the same club at the same time.
All of us also work hard to show how much we appreciate the effort the boys from down the road put in to come and train and play for the club. We are all friends too and do a lot of stuff away from the club, which I think helps performances on the pitch.
Like I said, the camaraderie right through the club is first class.
One of the early highlights in the new year will be our Scottish Cup clash against Hibs, how are you feeling about returning to Easter Road with Cove Rangers?
It’s one we are all looking forward to.
Hibs will obviously start as huge favourites, but we have been in good form so will go there believing we can do well. We believe we are a good team and playing at Easter Road, live on the telly, gives us a great chance to show that.
START PLAYING.
Rip-roaring power. Spellbinding control. Jaw-dropping accuracy. The new Mitre Delta Max SPFL. Prepare to mesmerise.
PAUL HARTLEY
I will begin by welcoming the players, staff and fans of East Fife to Balmoral Stadium for this afternoon’s cinch League One encounter.
It’s pleasing that we are going into this game on the back of an 11 match unbeaten run in all competitions.
These are the times in football when you should be feeling good about yourself and enjoying turning up to play every week.
But the fact East Fife were the last side to beat us is a reminder of how vital it is to beware of becoming complacent, particularly in this league.
I said before the campaign started that the sides in League One are so evenly matched you could never be certain of winning any game. There have been plenty of interesting results since then to back up that statement.
HARTLEY
“These are the times in football when you should be feeling good about yourself and enjoying turning up to play every week.”
We are on a brilliant run - but the task now is to dig deep and make sure that continues into the New Year.
Last weekend’s 3-0 victory over Alloa Athletic was also our seventh clean sheet in a row in the league.
That is exceptional, especially when you consider how much we have had to change the team about to cope with injuries and suspensions.
It’s a long time since we have had the luxury of being able to choose the same side for two games in a row. That hasn’t bothered the players though.
Those who came in just got on with doing what was required to get those clean sheets and to help us climb to the top of League One. We are only at the half-way stage of our league campaign, so it’s great that we have such a quality group of lads to call upon.
If we are to enjoy the second half of the campaign as much as we have the first they are going to have to keep on doing the right things.
I will end by thanking our fans for the backing they gave us this past year and wishing you all the best for 2022.
Enjoy the game.
Paul Hartley
MANAGEMENT
GOALKEEPERS
DEFENDERS
Paul Hartley
Gordon Young
Harry Milne
Ryan Strachan
Shay Logan Morgyn Neill
Scott Ross
Ritchie
Stuart McKenzie
Kyle Gourlay
Jevan Anderson
FORWARDS
MIDFIELDERS
To
Blair Yule
Jamie Masson
Fraser Fyvie
Connor Scully
Rory McAllister
Mitchel Megginson
Leighton McIntosh
Iain Vigurs
Robbie Leitch
— Season 2021/22 statistics
#CRFCLIVE
CAPTAIN’S WEIV
“Blair has always been a top class player, but I would argue he has taken things up to a different level...”
I will begin by saying I hope that your Christmas Day was the best that could be at what is a difficult time for all of us.
As this is my final column for 2021, I want to give special praise to our midfielder Blair Yule, the unsung hero of the first half of our campaign.
Other players, particularly strikers like myself, usually hog the headlines and make it into SPFL teams of the week, while the excellent work that Blair does tends to go completely under the radar. That’s a shame because he really has been outstanding for us since the first game of the campaign.
If you were to ask for a vote in our dressing room on who our player of the season so far has been the unanimous winner would be Blair. All of us admire the unselfish way he goes about his business, no matter what position the management team ask Blair to play in.
He has slotted in at full-back and also performed wide and in the heart of our midfield and maintained very high standards every time. Every team needs a player who is happy to do what is often termed as the ‘dirty stuff’, winning the ball to break up opponents attacks and tracking back to cover when others have gone forward. Blair does that - but much, much, more.
His pace in the middle of the park has been invaluable to us, as has been his excellent use of the ball, Blair’s range of passing is among the best in the division.
— Captain’s view
>>> Blair has always been a top class player, but I would argue he has taken things up to a different level since the club made the step up into the SPFL. He’s a pretty quiet individual, so will probably feel a wee bit uncomfortable to see praise being put his way.
But I feel it’s important to acknowledge the great work that Blair does and to let him know how much his team-mates appreciate him. Blair has also made a major contribution to the fact our 3-0 win over Alloa Athletic saw us make it an incredible seven clean sheets in a row in the league.
Clean sheets are the foundations that every side that hopes to be successful need to build on. It helps that we have what I regard as the best keeper in the league, Stuart McKenzie, with the equally talented Kyle Gourlay as back-up pushing him on.
Those clean sheets have also been achieved despite the fact the management have been constantly forced to change our back line to cope with injuries, illness and suspensions. It’s a testament to the quality of the lads who have stepped in that they did so seamlessly to ensure we got the results required to be where we are in cinch League One.
It’s now 11 league and cup games without defeat for us as well. But the fact the side we face at Balmoral Stadium this afternoon, East Fife, were the last to get the better of us is a reminder of the need to maintain high standards. We were well short of that when we lost 4-2 down at Bayview Stadium in October. It’s vital we don’t allow that to happen again if we want to end the year on a high.
I will finish with a final thanks to the Cove Rangers fans for the excellent backing you gave us throughout 2021.
It really was much appreciated. I wish you a happy -and safeNew Year when it comes.
CYCR!
Mitch Megginson
Scottish League 2 Winners: 2019-20
Highland League Winners: 2000-01, 2007-08, 2008-09, 2012-13, 201516, 2017-18, 2018-19
Runners-up: 1989-90, 1992-93, 1994-95, 1995-96, 2009-10, 2011-12, 2016-17
Scottish Qualifying Cup (North) Winners: 1990-91, 2000-01
Runners-up: 1988-89, 1991-92, 2001-02, 2003-04
Highland League Cup Winners: 1994-95, 1999-2000, 2004-05, 2014-15, 2016-17, 2018-19
Runners-up: 1990-91, 1992-93, 1995-96, 1997-98, 2005-06, 2007-08, 2011-12
Aberdeenshire Cup Winners: 2001-02, 2010-11, 2018-19
Runners-up: 1992-93, 1994-95, 2016-17, 2017-18
Aberdeenshire Shield Winners: 1990-91, 2000-01, 2008-09, 2017-18
Runners-up: 1994-95, 2012-13, 2015-16
Aberdeenshire & District League Winners: 2000-01, 2008-09, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2014-15
Runners-up: 2006-07
Aberdeenshire Centenery Cup Runners-up: 1986-87
Inter-League Trophy Winners: 2001-02
Cove Rangers FC Manager - Paul Hartley
1. Stuart McKenzie
2. Morgyn Neill
3. Harry Milne
4. Connor Scully
5. Scott Ross
6. Ryan Strachan
8. Blair Yule
9. Mitchel Megginson (C)
10. Jamie Masson
11. Leighton McIntosh
13. Rory McAllister
14. Ross Draper
15. Jevan Anderson
16. Iain Vigurs
17. Ola Adeyemo
18. Finlay Robertson
19. Rhys Thomas
20. Robbie Leitch
21. Balint Demus
23. Kyle Gourlay
24. Fraser Fyvie
25. Shay Logan
East Fife FC Manager - Stevie Crawford
1. Scott Gallacher
2. Aaron Dunsmore
3. Chris Higgins
4. Stewart Murdoch
5. Ross Dunlop
6. Connor McManus
7. Danny Denholm
8. Pat Slattery 9. Ryan Wallace
10. Kevin Smith (C) 11. Kieran Millar 12. Scott Mercer 14. Liam Watt 15. Jamie Semple
16. Ross Davidson 17. Aaron Steele 18. Liam Newton
19. Danny Higgins
21. Jude Smith 22. Kyle Connell
Today’s referee - Duncan Williams
Today’s assistant referees - Paul McAvinue, Terry Ormiston
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