Today sees the eagerly awaited launch of the halftimebovril.com shop! For all the fans out there just longing to be a part of the team, now is your chance. From t-shirts to mousemats you can fully personalise your clobber to be a walking advertisement for the site!
All you have to do is click the link on the left or follow this:
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We seem to be making a habit of going to matches we don’t set out to go to in the first place. As we were about to leave this morning we heard the news that the Dumbarton vs. Stenhousemuir game had been called off due to the weather (someone doesn’t want us to go to Dumbarton!), so a quick scan through the fixture list gave us 3 possibilities. After a difficult selection process (doing numbers) we decided to take the short trip to Coatbridge to see Albion Rovers host Elgin City, our first Third Division match and clearly a battle of the titans.
For once we left with plenty of time, going for our traditional fast food before the game, and parking opposite the stadium in the Lidl car park. From the outside it looked like the stand used by Nazi Germany in the movie ‘Escape to Victory’, with the main stand painted black, yellow and red. It clearly had not seen an upgrade since Sylvester Stallones mum had her face in one piece (i.e. a long time ago).
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Once inside it didn’t get much better with either the option to stand at ground level, or sit in the old wooden seats with our knees knocking off our chins (just how the Reich would have wanted it). We opted for the seat despite it being rather uncomfortable, with the hope of a better view of the match.
The stadium wasn’t much to look at but what little area was there for supporters quickly filled up with quite a few of the locals. There is only one other stand, terracing only, on the far side, but this was only used for the dugouts and a lonely photographer. Beyond this is a nice hill, which we could have sat on to watch the game for free, patrolled by what looked like a lone security guard on a bicycle (so glad I don’t have his job). He had to chase away a few younger neds, but also kept well clear of a small group of older ones!
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The game itself can really only be described by one word: “pumped”. Elgin are currently bottom of the division, and if I overheard correctly almost had the worst start to the league in professional history of any league. This certainly showed on the pitch, even though they deservedly got the opener on the 20th minute. Rovers quickly replied with an equaliser in under a minute, and then took it to 3-1 before half time. The pitch was in an awful state, not helped by the fact that it didn’t stop pishing down all afternoon, which meant the football was scrappy and pretty poor.
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With another Stallone movie being released this week we were hopeful that the visitors may come out fighting but that wasn’t to be and shortly after the break Albion extended their lead to 4-1. Elgin got one back thanks to a bit of simulation in the box from one of their strikers to earn a penalty, but after that Albion finished off the second half by adding a further 2 goals to their tally to make the final score 6–2 to Albion.
All in all a good afternoon out for the half-time bovril team in which the Fuehrer will be pleased.
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Quality of seat: 1/5 Quality of banter: 1.5/5 Quality of ground: 1/5 Quality of pie: 2/5 (was a bit dry) Overall: 1.5/5 |
Well after going to the game we decided to record the highlights for your viewing pleasure so here is the highlights in full and a pic of where we were at the ground.
PART ONE
PART TWO
Pic of the bovril team
It was Saturday morning and the Half Time Bovril team were getting prepared to go to the Stenhousemuir vs. Albion Rovers game when divine intervention from the football gods came to Jamie in a flash, stating that we must go to Cappielow two weeks earlier than planned. Who are we to argue with Davie Cooper? So we set our sights on the Morton vs. Kilmarnock game. We left with plenty of time to get down there, but Mark is desperate to grab a Burger King before we get there as per usual, and after half an hour of trying to find the place in which Mark is insistent had been intentionally put between a snakes and ladders road fest because the people of Greenock heard he was coming, we go for a KFC instead (lol!).
A swift park of the car just near McDonalds and we were walking down to Cappielow with only a few minutes till kick off. We turn onto the street where the entrance is and there’s a massive queue to get in, thankfully we are told the game has been delayed because there’s so many people still not in the ground.
Now I’ve heard a few stories about Cappielow being an absolute dump so our expectations are certainly not high! Midgets were having problems entering the turnstiles and even Mark has to breathe in to get through them, but hey we still get in with time to spare before kick-off. We take up position behind the east end goal on the terracing towards the back and hope for a great game and hopefully are shown on the TV (which we were :P). The stadium is mostly standing with only the main stand, and the front of the opposite stand seated. It’s not as bad as we were expecting but still quite a step down from Firhill or Broadwood with several of the floodlights missing.
The game turns out to be a belter with Morton extremely unlucky not to be winning comfortably as they go in for half time missing several chances in which Templeman and McGowan were prominent. Killie had certainly not shown that they are a team two divisions above Morton. Anyway the second half starts off with Killie going 1-0 against the run of play thanks to Colin Nish, but it doesn’t take too long for Morton to equalise through the first of two goals from Chris Templeman. Not long after that he netted his second, with McGowen coolly slotting home for the third, shortly after Templeman was chopped inside the box for a stonewall penalty which wasn’t given. The ref was certainly biased towards the travelling team with a few very bad challenges let go without even a free kick given. Needless to say the place is going mental at the result, with the atmosphere certainly the best we’ve been to so far.
So that was our third match, with the last highlight being Mark attempting to jump over a fence when we were going back to the car, and ending up flat on his face, claiming its his shoes that did it!
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Quality of seat: what seat? Quality of banter: 5/5 Quality of Ground: 2/5 Quality of pie: there was a pie stand? Overall: 4/5 (the match itself certainly made up for it!) |
