Jon — SFC: End of Season 1

Hello all, and welcome back to another update of my Stenhousemuir story! I apologize for the delay between reporting our midseason results and now, but it’s been a hectic few days. As a quick refresher: when last we left we’d managed to position ourselves in 2nd place of an impressively competitive league. We’d largely been riding an absolutely stellar defense, aided by the scoring prowess of our lone striker Gary O’Neill, and were seriously overachieving. We went into January confident and determined, which turned out to be a good thing as I’d neglected to realize our very first fixture was against league leaders Livingston!

January 2011

Stenhousemuir vs Livingston:

We entered this match knowing we’d have a battle on our hands, and was it ever. We opened the match on a flyer as Paudie Quinn blasted one home only two minutes in, and I was optimistic about our chances. What followed was a pitched midfield battle with Livingston equalizing in the 28th with an unfortunately beautiful volley from Keaghan Jacobs (aided by Keeper Brown’s mishandling of the ball). We continued to trade possession until we put on a clinical counter attack to take a 2-1 lead into halftime.

Following the half, things started to get ugly. Both teams began fouling hard, and Oliver Nicholas left us in the lurch when he was sent off on a straight red in the 55th minute. Fortunately, Livingston’s Jason Talbot picked up his second yellow only 3 minutes later, leaving both teams with 10 men. Two red cards in three minutes put the referee firmly back in control, and the fouls diminished as the teams cleaned up their act. We seemed destined to carry the 2-1 win through to the end before Livingston split our defense in two and scored the equalizer in the 81st minute. I was disheartened as we blew the lead, and we were almost certain to finish out the match with a level score. Thankfully for us, Livingston had other ideas. A hard foul in the box set up Gary O’Neill to score the winning goal from the penalty spot a minute into injury time, and we easily closed out the match as 3-2 winners!

We carried our good form throughout the rest of January, and managed to secure three wins and two ties (including a 3-3 thriller against a suddenly very dangerous East Fife squad). Despite the win over Livingston and our relative good form, we finished the month still sitting in 2nd by two points.

February 2011

February turned out to be a relatively quiet month, curtesy of only three scheduled fixtures. Despite the light schedule, two of the three matches were against very tough teams (including our nemesis Airdrie United). Thankfully I need not have worried, and we took care of business with three wins, including a huge 6-0 victory hapless Dumbarton.

March 2011

If February was light, March was a downright joke — only two fixtures! Unfortunately one of those fixtures was a rematch against Livingston. We were sitting only a single point behind them at this juncture, and the winner would almost certainly walk away with the league title come season’s end. I didn’t expect us to play very well (we’d really had too much rest), and Livingston’s professional squad finally overpowered our semi-pros. Despite taking an early 1-0 lead, Livingston was just too strong for us, and walked out deserved 2-1 winners. We were carrying a 1-1 draw late into the game, but Aidan Downes drew two yellows in under a minute (76th and 77th), and we were unable to prevent the winning goal with only 10 men.

The win gave Livingston a comfortable 4 point league lead, and we were looking likely to be facing a playoff battle.

April/May 2011

We only had a single game in May, so I decided to combine the months together. Following our loss against Livingston, we seemed destined for a playoff battle. By this point in the season, we and Livingston had pulled away from the rest of the pack, and we’d both guaranteed ourselves at worst a playoff position. It was a two horse race at this point, and we were determined to see it out. We ended up getting a fair bit of help, as Livingston dropped two of their three games (the third being a draw) after their victory over us, while we won all three of ours. Miraculously, this gave us a 4 point advantage at the top, and we needed only two points in our final two matches to guarantee the title.

Stenhousemuir away against Ayr United:

I knew heading into the match that this would be a tricky fixture. Ayr and East Fife were locked in a desperate battle against automatic relegation, and they weren’t going to rollover for us (their manager actually stated pre-match that it was his goal to prevent us from winning the title). Did we manage to secure the win and the title?

Not so much. Oliver Nicholas earned himself ANOTHER straight red (making it three on the season), and despite the narrow scoreline, Ayr never looked much like losing. Most of our shots were from range and poorly executed as we tried secure at least a point out of the match, but we deservedly lost. Elsewhere, Livingston secured a 2-1 win over Alloa to close our lead down to a single point. We needed a win or a Livingston slipup to secure the title now.

Stenhousemuir home against Alloa:

This was it, the final game of the season! We needed a full three points to guarantee a title (and automatic promotion), or some help if we couldn’t get the job done.  We were without our best defender (Nicholas), and O’Neill had been in lackluster form of late. Surely though, we would take care of business and earn ourselves a promotion.

Then again, maybe not. We played like garbage against a team with literally nothing to play for (they’d already guaranteed a play off position and could gain no further ground regardless of the result), and certainly didn’t look like title contenders. I was almost scared to check the remainder of the league scores after the final whistle, but was thrilled to see Livingston had also been unable to take care of business, and had fallen 1-2 against Peterhead.

It was ugly, gritty, and backwards, but we’d secured the Second Division title and the automatic promotion that comes with it. Skidding into our championship wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined winning our first piece of silverware (I’d imagined a glorious 4-3 comeback win), but we’ll take it regardless!

Season Wrap-Up:

Truly unbelievable. We’d entered the season expected to finish 10th and be automatically relegated, and instead secured the title and automatic promotion (take that media!). Livingston went on to win the promotion playoff, while Ayr survived the relegation playoffs to remain in the Second Division next year:

The board was also pretty esctatic, and decided to reward my efforts with a shocking pay raise (I’m going to credit the full season of exotic away friendlies I scheduled for my Reserve team):

Next Steps:

The one major problem with unexpected promotions is you tend to find yourself way over your head in the higher division. I’ll be spending the offseason concentrating on a definitive youth movement. Many of the players that secured our promotion are 28 and above, and with a nearly impossible season ahead of us, I want to focus on building a solid young squad that will grow together. With some serious effort and a healthy dose of luck, we should be able to secure First Division survival.