Interim boss stunned as EK suffer first defeat

CS Strollers .............. 3 East Kilbride ............ 1

Paul Thomson

Stuart Malcolm admits Saturday’s performance at Civil Service Strollers was unacceptable after East Kilbride fell to their first defeat of the season.

The interim Kilby boss saw his hopes of landing the job permanently suffer a big blow as they fell three points behind Barry Ferguson’s Kelty Hearts at the top of the table, although EK have a game in hand.

A Cammy Muirhead double and a Steven Froude strike were enough to sink Kilby, who had pulled it back to 2-1 through skipper Craig Malcolm.

However, the visitors were found wanting defensively just a week on from an impressive Scottish Cup second round win over Lowland rivals Spartans. Malcolm said: “We’ve had an under par performance and the guys know it wasn’t acceptable.

“For the standards we set for ourselves against Spartans last week, there’s not a lot of positive we can take.

“We’ve had a week where everything was excellent to a game where a number of errors and poor decisions have cost us. We need to dust ourselves down and get the confidence back for the next game.

“Throughout a whole season there will be ups and downs and defeats will happen. This is our first one so it’s disappointing, but we are a work in progress.

“We just have to move on, rectify the mistakes and be better this weekend.”

Malcolm’s men fell behind after 12 minutes when Paul Woods got caught in possession in the Strollers half and they stormed up field, allowing David Churchill to cross for Froude to slot home at the back post.

Eight minutes later EK fell two behind after a calamitous piece of defending. Scott Stevenson got caught out with a long ball over the top and his skewed clearance allowed Muirhead to lob the ball over onrushing Kilby keeper Matt McGinley from 20 yards.

EK threatened to mount a comeback in 68 minutes when new signing Chris Humphrey whipped in a corner to the near post and skipper Craig Malcolm turned the ball into the net.

However, Malcolm was at fault for Civil’s clincher moments later when he was dispossessed just inside his own half and Muirhead completed a fine move with a close range finish.

Stand-in boss Stuart Malcolm added: “We certainly could have dealt with things better at all the goals.

“Woodsy loses the ball for the first goal, but there’s still another 90 yards for their player to go and other chances to stop it.

“Without playing well at all, we managed to get it back to 2-1 and give ourselves a chance, but we threw it away almost immediately.”

EK now host East Stirling at K-Park. Kick-off on Saturday is 3pm.

P W Kelty Hearts 10 7 EAST KILBRIDE 9 6 Spartans 10 5 BSC Glasgow 10 5 Cumbernauld Colts 10 6 Edinburgh Uni 12 4 Edusport Academy 11 4 CS Strollers 10 5 East Stirlingshire 11 4 Vale of Leithen 12 4 Stirling University 11 3 Gala Fairydean Rvs 11 4 Gretna 2008 11 3 Dalbeattie Star 11 2 Whitehill Welfare 12 1 D 2 2 4 4 1 5 4 1 2 2 4 0 2 2 1 L GD 1 20 1 14 1 12 1 12 3 3 3 -1 3 6 4 0 5 5 6 -7 4 -1 7 -5 6 -12 7 -15 10 -28 PT 23 20 19 19 19 17 16 16 14 14 13 12 11 8 4

Other results East Stirling 2 Gretna 0; Edinburgh Uni 1 Cumbernauld Colts 0; Kelty Hearts 2 Gala Fairydean Rovers 0; Spartans 1 Edusport 1; Whitehill Welfare 0, Stirling Uni 3; BSC Glasgow 4 Vale of Leithen 0.