City return to action tomorrow evening as they make the trip to Forthbank to face University of Stirling, with Andy Kirk’s side looking to make it six consecutive victories to continue the unbeaten start to the Lowland League East campaign.
For the first time, City will come up against a University of Stirling side managed by former City striker Chris Geddes. The students will head into the game with renewed confidence of their own after picking up their first victory of the season at the weekend against Dunipace.
TEAM NEWS
City will have the same squad availability as Saturday with Spencer Moreland, Kyle Bell, Kieran Inglis, Euan Spark & Adam Hutchinson all continuing to miss out through injury. Brad McKay will serve the second game of his 2 match suspension and will return for Saturday’s fixture against Hill of Beath Hawthorn.
MANAGERS COMMENTS
Speaking on the victory over Lochee United at the weekend, Manager Andy Kirk commented, “Lochee have started the season well and have a lot of former Brechin players which gives you a difficult challenge. When you leave a team and you end up coming against them then you always want to perform. The players that were at Brechin before that I knew of – the likes of Michael McArthur and Ryan Ferguson are really good players and I get on well with them – it’s great to see them doing so well.
“I’m disappointed that we went behind but we should have gone in front just before that and we had a couple of other situations where we could have done a bit better. Again we showed good character to come back into the game. We knew at half time that we should have been doing better as a group and if we could get a goal early in the second half then we would have a great chance of going on to the win the game and that’s what we did.
“It was a terrific strike from Ryan Blair to get us level and he has shown that he has got the ability to strike from there. I’ve spoken to the players about this and I want them to shoot from distance more – sometimes we are guilty of trying that extra pass.
“For the winner Hilly made a great run and he was just trying to get us as far as possible up the pitch – you probably couldn’t have fault to him to have a go for goal himself given the distance he had covered but he did superbly well to find Darren Watson to tap in. We were unfortunate not to have another one or two goals in the end without playing brilliantly well but we were certainly a lot better in the second half.
“The most important thing is that we won the game as we are still waiting on players coming back which will help us get a bit of consistency. The fact that we’re not near full strength yet is quite exciting for us.”
Mason Chisholm made his debut in the centre of defence after just signing for the Club on loan from Airdrieonians on Friday afternoon. Andy added, “Mason is a player that has been recommended to us by a number of people. For a young lad he has a lot of ability but he’s just come in – initially we started with a shape that would give a bit of extra protection to him but we changed that midway through the first half and I thought he was great.”
Looking ahead to tomorrow evening he said, “We’ve started the season well and we just need to keep that going. If we are to be successful this season we need to win every game that we can and the players need to keep working as hard as they’ve been and see where it takes us.”
MATCH OFFICIALS
Tomorrow’s match referee is Ollie Kidd, assisted by Richard Macartney & Findlay Macinnes.
ADMISSION INFORMATION
Tomorrow’s match at Forthbank Stadium kicks off at 7:45pm. Admission prices are £10 for adults and £5 for concessions. Please note U16’s must be accompanied by an adult.
SUPPORTERS TRAVEL
Brechin City Supporters’ Club are running a bus to the game which will leave Glebe Park at 5:30pm. The bus is now fully booked – thank you for your fantastic support!
LAST TIME OUT
City came from behind to defeat Lochee United 2-1 at Thomson Park on Saturday. Former City winger Ruari Henry had given the Bluebells a half time lead but a tremendous 20 yard strike from Ryan Blair had City level just three minutes after the break. Shortly before the hour mark the turnaround was complete as Dale Hilson laid the ball on a plate for Darren Watson to net from close range.
Stirling University meanwhile picked up their first win of the season with a hard-fought 1-0 win over Dunipace at Forthbank. Thomas Vonk netted the only goal of the game on 63 minutes, with the visitors reduced to 9 men late on as Colley and Sinclair saw red.
PREVIOUS MEETING
Tomorrow’s fixture will be the first competitive meeting between the sides.
Preview by Steven Mew
