Loony Joons: Floody hell for Burgh boys but Doc's Pollok are back in business

Nov 17 2011

The Wacky World of Junior Football with Glaswegian hack and Johnstone Burgh keeper Fraser Wilson

SATURDAY'S international break meant a mad scramble for junior clubs to hijack fans from the SPL to boost their own coffers for the day.

Unfortunately for Johnstone Burgh, someone forgot to tell the weatherman and the spurt of rain on Friday night was enough to deem Keanie Park waterlogged for the fourth time this season.

Anyone familiar with our quaint wee home will know the park is like a giant sponge. One step on the grass on Saturday and you'd have been lucky not to lose an adidas samba.

The drainage is so bad that, if a game does go ahead, the club has enforced a ban on players spitting. And if anyone should dare drip sweat it's an automatic substitution.

St Roch's were due to head west on Saturday but they probably took one look at the fixture list and booked their Christmas day out early.

The call-offs are frustrating for our loyal fans and there's nothing worse for us players who, having avoided the pub on the Friday, find ourselves with nothing better to look forward to than another training session.

But I do love how there's always someone who pulls a fast one. Despite buzzing for the game the night before, suddenly they have to work, or they're ill or - my personal favourite (from a previous club) - a guy had to stay in to baby-sit his girlfriend's rabbit. That's a true story aswell.

Thankfully on Saturday there was no such problem at Pollok's lush Newlandsfield Park where over 800 crammed in to see managerless Lok mow Irvine Meadow 1-0.

By all accounts this was a great advert for the junior game and a result which will raise stand-in boss Stephen Docherty's chances of landing one of junior football's top jobs.

Lok seem in no rush to appoint Willie Irvine's successor and Doc faces competition from John Miller and John Richardson for the post.

It was a good day for Glasgow's three Premier League sides. Ashfield got back to winning ways with a 4-1 thumping of Cumnock and Petershill beat early pacesetters Rob Roy 3-1.

Speaking of the Peasy, well done to Willie Paterson and Scott Smith for guiding their side to the first silverware of the season last Monday night, beating Shotts 3-2 to lift the Surridge Sectional League Cup.

This weekend's fixture list should add further spice to what is gearing up to be one of the hottest Premier League title fights for years.

Pick of the bunch is Pollok's trip to Beith while Ashfield v Clydebank should be a cracker. Petershill head to Ayrshire to tackle Kilbirnie.

Meanwhile, the Holy Grail returned to the agenda this week when the draw was made for the third round of the Scottish Junior Cup.

The beauty of the competition at this stage is the opportunity it affords players and fans to veer off their well-worn paths and into unchartered territory. Not to mention some crucial 'team bonding' time before, but more so after, the match.

In that regard St Rochs have drawn a beauty away to Fraserburgh while Pollok, fresh from defeating Burghead on the Moray Coast, are on their travels again with a trip to Perthshire to face Blairgowrie.