Shippy well beaten at Leven
The Shipyard slumped to defeat at Leven after being run ragged by the pace of the young Leven strikers. At one stage the Shipyard were 5 – 0 down before rallying and pulling two goals back. The damage was mainly done in the first half as Leven scored two goals just before half-time to give them a comfortable 3 – 0 lead. Manager Whitehead made one change to the team that beat Fair City on Tuesday with Bryan Cook replacing the injured Neil Johnston.
Leven started strongly and Chalmers was forced into blocking an early effort. Leven opened the scoring in the 3rd minute when the Shipyard failed to deal with a corner and after the ball rebounded from the bar the Leven player calmly slotted ball into the corner of the net. In the 8th minute Austin should have scored for Leven but headed over from a good position. When the ball broke to McAndrew after a Shipyard corner Mitchell held his shot comfortably. In the 27th minute the Shipyard missed a great chance to level when Hamilton took a quick free-kick to McCue, who bore down on goal but saw his shot well saved by Mitchell. The Shipyard were now enjoying a fine spell and the Leven keeper had to come off his line and punch the ball away from McAndrew’s head. Leven doubled their lead in the 40th minute when Austin latched onto a ball over the top and lobbed Chalmers. On the stroke of half-time Leven scored again with an identical goal to their first, with the Shipyard defence again failing to clear, the ball hitting the bar and the rebound being knocked in.
Two goals in a minute at the start of the second half finished the match as a contest. Firstly, Austin rose unchallenged at the back post to head the ball back across Chalmers and into the corner of the net. Then from the re-start the Shipyard lost possession and the Leven forward was played in and he stroked the ball into the net to make it 5 – 0. In the 63rd minute Josh Williams pulled a goal back for the Shipyard when he received a good pass on the left-hand side and cut in to beat the impressive Mitchell with a fine finish. The Shipyard were the more dominant team now and created a few chances with Smart heading wide from a corner, then Mitchell producing the save of the match to keep out a McCue free-kick. Two long range efforts from Whyte were both held by Mitchell and sandwiched in between in the 86th minute Owen McCue converted a penalty after he had been fouled in the box to reduce the deficit to 5 – 2.
Billy Whitehead was very disappointed after the game and said “that was a poor performance after playing so well on Tuesday. We hardly strung two passes together and never got to grips with the game”.
Teams: Leven United: Mitchell; Winn; Murray; Thomson; Lamont; Russell; Connolly; Wilkie; Austin; Lornie; Rowbotham. Subs: Barrett; Urquhart.
Burntisland Shipyard: Chalmers; Grieve( Dow); Whyte; Smart; Cook; McAndrew (Brough); Hamilton; T. Williams; Russell; McCue; J. Williams. Unused sub: Martin.
Referee: G. Farmer.