Lochee suffering dose of the blues

IT’S been a bad few days for Lochee United, having followed their defeat from Auchinleck in the Scottish Cup with a loss to Jeanfield in the league on Wednesday.

Perhaps their minds were still on the cup defeat but they never really got going against Jeanfield and the Perth side eased their relegation concerns with a 1-0 victory thanks to a Tony Holt goal after 70 minutes.

With only a few weeks to go the Bluebells face a hectic end to the season and will be playing at least two games a week.

Their Scottish Cup run plus postponements mean George Shields’ side still have 10 league fixtures to fit in, plus at least one cup fixture.

That cup game comes tomorrow when they play their third game in a row at Thomson Park against Linlithgow in the East of Scotland Cup.

Elsewhere, there was double bad news for Carnoustie in midweek.They crashed out of the East of Scotland Cup after a nightmare finish against Kirrie Thistle and news that Jeanfield had picked up three points at Thomson Park makes tomorrow’s clash between the sides in Perth the proverbial six-pointer.

Wednesday’s defeat by Kirrie was a sore one to take for manager Alan McSkimming.

Goals from Steven Cook, Robert Urquhart and Ryan Roche helped the Gowfers to a 3-1 interval lead and they held on to that lead until 10 minutes to go.

The Westview side then scored twice, through Stewart Russell, his second of the evening, and an Abie Njie penalty, to take the tie to penalties.

They then completed the job, winning 5-4 on spot-kicks.

For tomorrow’s game, Swifts are again without injured pair skipper Chris Anton and Scott Mollison.

Forfar West End’s midweek defeat at fellow-strugglers Kennoway has cast Daryl McKenzie’s men five points adrift of the Fifers at the foot of the Super League.

It isn’t quite a lost cause for West End as they have two games in hand but a win is a must from Broxburn’s visit tomorrow.