reserves 1 Crichton1

Was in Galloway this weekend so i went along to see the reserves with Ben.A very entertaing game which probably Stranraer should have edged,the away keeper made 3 point blank saves, with both sides playng some good football,For Stranraer i was very impressed by Lewis Richardson,nice and comfortable on the ball,good passing and sound positional and defensive play.John Kiltie also took the eye for me.Good performance all round though and i share the view that one or two may make the breakthrough to the seniors.
Because their was no lineman available for either teams the ref had to call all offsides himself and obviously got some wrong so both teams,in the dressing room after the game,could have said they would have won but for the off side that went against them.I thought the ref had an excellent game although the teams behaved impeccably.there was a couple og guys standing on the halfway line with flags to tell the ref when the ball went out but surely it would have been better had they been givern the responsibility to give more than that and try to run the line correctly.this may have been the refs directive,it might also have opened arguments after re bias,i know as i have done a lot of reffing and lining,but here all our local clubs supply linos to help the ref and this would have probably made for an even better game.It was a shame because the teams were excellent and this just took the edge off the game for me.

Football grounds in focus

May i recomend the web site of the name of this topic,it is run by a workmate of mine and is basically for the fans that go to different grounds each week .Martin has just notched his 1000 ground in gt britain and he only told me about it today i found the photos of the grounds very interesting .I am sure some of you regulars on here will find the site informative,the programme page shows a Stair way to heaven proggy from two seasons ago.

SOS Childrens villages

Tottenham Hotspur have been underwriting a house being built for orphans in South Africa under the guidance of SOS.It is being paid for by the fines that the players get for breach of club rules and is underwritten by the clubs own charity.They will pay for its upkeep.It has all the players support and on there tour of SA they and their opponents from Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates made several visits to orphanages throughout SA giving out goody bags as well as playng impromptu games,sometimes 15 a side.Its good when any clubs especially the rich one take this sort of project on evnme if it dosent get reported in th press well and i hope other clubs will follow suit when and if they can.

Histon in the conference

Histon a local club here in Cambridge have just been promoted to the conference having had 4 promotions in severn years.There are a lot of similarities betwenn Histon and Stranraer
The first is when the present board took over 15 years ago the club was investigated for bad book keeping and were near to going out of existance.take a look at the toon today although not threatened they do have bad bookeeping to put right.
The two towns,Histon is actually a Village, have a similar population.
Histon run 6 colts teams at all ages in the cambs colts league,plus a reserve team,the toon are just starting this proceedure.
Progress has been made at histon both on the pitch with the inclusion of a few new players as well as developing the ground.we all know that SP needs some improvements and we are told these are being addressed.
Steve Fallon has been manager for nine years with John beck as his assistant.We need to commit a local manager like K Knox if available and with an assistant in the central belt,to develope what has just been started.This is not a get GB out post i hasten but looking ahead to when he does leave.
These are just a few points that have got Histon to the conference ,It is like the toon getting to Div 1 a real challenge and very hard thing to achieve.the one thing we might all do is to allow the committee some time as continuity is what is needed to bring our club back and to get the people of Stranraer back supporting it.

Bladnoch Distillery

Since i have noticed that several new distilleries are to be built including one at Girvan can anyone advise if Bladnoch is now distilling again .Thanks