The university’s men’s football team has made history by going further in the competition than ever before.
A first round tie seen them get past Keith FC in a 2-1 home victory last month. This earned them a draw against Deveronale FC up in Banff, with the chance to progress further than any side before and have the prospect of facing sides from as high as the championship.
The university side took the lead after Lewis Hunter’s attempted ball through was blocked by the hand of a Deveronale defender and the referee pointed to the spot.
Lewis Bonnar stepped up and slotted the ball home, going straight down the middle.
They were pegged back by the hosts only five minutes later, as a ball came in from the left-hand side and was met by the run of an unmarked man who split the defence and fired home to equalise.
Stirling were quick in once again regaining the lead however, taking only five minutes themselves to score again.
A corner was whipped in by MacEwan and it eventually found its way back out to him in the corner, his second effort was a high looping ball to the back post which Slattery ran onto and finished first time, low into the bottom far corner through a crowd of bodies and into the net.
Great scenes of celebration from the visitors who clearly knew how big a goal it was.
Both sides had good opportunities to score in the remaining 20 minutes, but the university managed to see the game out to secure themselves a third-round spot.
They have been rewarded with a home tie to league 2 side Elgin City FC on Saturday 24th November.
Manager Chris Geddes commented on the result and the prospect of facing Elgin:
It’s a great achievement for a university side to get to the 3rd round. The boys were excellent and deserved to go through. We will go into the Elgin game with nothing to lose. All the pressure is on them as they are the league team, so we will look forward to the game and enjoy it and hopefully we can get a positive result.
The team are competing in BUCS on Wednesday in Loughborough, having won both of their previous games so far and they return to league action on Saturday away in Edinburgh against Whitehill Welfare FC.
Their next home game is on the 31st October against Nottingham Trent at the university, with a tie against Barry Ferguson’s Kelty Hearts at Forthbank stadium on the 17th of November to follow.
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[…] will be the second time Chris Geddes has led his side into this stage of the competition since taking […]