Cold snap hits juniors again
Gary Pews • Published 6 Feb 2012 13:00
0 Comments
Share this
click to enlarge
Greenock Juniors manager Stevie Mooney.
Port Glasgow manager Craig Brown.
THE weather was the winner yet again at the weekend as far as the Juniors fixtures were concerned.
Although the west of Scotland largely escaped the snow which affected many other areas of the UK, frozen pitches from several nights of hard frosts saw the fixtures card decimated.
Just six matches throughout the five league divisions survived, and three of those only made it due to being played on artificial surfaces.
After news came through that their game at Vale of Clyde was off, Greenock arranged a training session on the five-a-side pitches at Lady Octavia Sports Centre.
And they have also lined-up a friendly match against Forth Wanderers for tonight.
The game will be kicking off at 8pm, and it will be played on the astroturf at Inverclyde Academy.
The Wanderers have languished in the basement second division league for some time, but they have had an encouraging start to this season's campaign.
They currently lie in third place with seven wins from their 10 games played.
Greenock boss Stevie Mooney explained how tonight's match came about.
He said: "We were looking to line-up a game for this evening and a friend of mine told me that he heard Forth were also keen on arranging a friendly as, like ourselves, they have not had much action in recent weeks.
"It is quite a distance for them to travel, but I would imagine some of their squad might be from the Glasgow area, so it shouldn't be too bad.
"Routine training sessions are all very well, but games like this are much more of a help in giving the squad some match practice.''
Meanwhile, Port Glasgow boss Craig Brown, inset, admits he was not surprised when he got the call to confirm that his side's match at Benburb was off.
He said: "Although the temperature had gone up a bit on Saturday morning, it was obviously not going to be enough to thaw out the rock solid pitch at Tinto Park and I did not expect the game to be on.
"The squad had the day off, but we will be back in training tonight.
"We just hope that we might get back into competitive action on Saturday.''
A big weekend looms for the Port, with an important match against St. Roch's in the second round of the West of Scotland Cup.
And after an absence from the Inverclyde area for both of the local clubs for over a month due to the storm damage at Battery Park, the cup match sees the first game back at Ravenscraig since the stadium was refurbished.
This article appeared in Greenock Telegraph 06 Feb 12
Return to the main index, get more from this section or browse our Sport archives.
