Butchart leads GB and NI to the gold
Mackay vows to rip up team sheet as struggling Binos hit rock botton SEE PAGE 54
Central AC’s Andrew Butchart captained the Great Britain and Northern Ireland senior men to team gold in Sunday’s European Cross Country Championships in Italy.
Andrew went to the front of the race from the start, sharing the lead with fellow Scot Callum Hawkins and as the race unfolded the duo were running in a group of four with two Turkish athletes on a fast, dry course in Sardinia.
The latter part of the race saw the Turkish duo in first and second with Callum winning individual bronze medal ahead of Andrew in fourth; both performances eclipsing the best by any Scottish senior man at these championships.
The overall team scores proved to be a close affair with the two Scots leading the team to gold.
The Dunblane athlete, who is coached by Central’s Derek Easton, said: “I’m happy. Callum delivered a medal and has put a lot of work in, but I definitely think if you want to beat the top guys you have to go for it, and for us to be that close to them and compete properly against them is great to see.”
Stirling Albion manager Dave Mackay has vowed to make changes after a dreadful display against Edinburgh City saw the team drop to the foot of Ladbrokes League Two.
The Binos were beaten 2-0 by the SPFL new boys at Meadowbank Stadium and now face crucial games against Annan Athletic, Montrose and Cowdenbeath before the turn of the year, by which point the campaign will have reached the halfway stage. Albion found themselves in a similar position under Greig McDonald in 2012/13 but a number of January signings helped the team finish in seventh spot on the back of a muchimproved run. The crucial difference now is that 10th position brings with it a two-legged play-off against the winners of the Highland League/Lowland League decider.
Buckie Thistle and East Kilbride currently top their divisions and being involved in those games would be a nightmare scenario for Stirling.
A top-four finish was the minimum ambition at the start of the season but it’s now simply a fight for SPFL survival and Mackay has vowed to do what it takes, while chairman Stuart Brown has confirmed money is available to strengthen the squad when the transfer window opens.
Mackay said of Saturday: “It was a shocking performance. From the first minute to the last minute, we were nowhere near it and Edinburgh thoroughly deserved their win.
“They looked the hungrier side, they worked harder than us, they had a bit of a cutting edge and did all the things we never did.
“Understandably the fans are worried and I can assure them I will be doing everything I can to change this. I have belief in myself and in a core group of the players and I have an idea of others I can bring in to strengthen the squad, but there is no doubt that things have to change because Stirling Albion can’t be finishing bottom of League Two.
“It just should not be happening when you consider the fan base and the size of the club. Everyone connected with the club should be pretty embarrassed at the minute.” He added: “The league table doesn’t lie — if you are bottom in say September, you can put that down to a slow start but not when you are in the middle of December. There’s obviously a lot of problems — players just aren’t performing or maybe some aren’t good enough – but things will need to change in the next month or so for the benefit of everyone at the club. “I can some take of the blame for Saturday because I picked a team I thought was capable of beating Edinburgh City but they showed me nothing to back that judgment so I need to look at myself. “But it’s not just been a bad month — this has been going on for a couple of years now and whether we need to have a complete overhaul of the players is something that we are going to be thinking about seriously in the next few weeks.” After only a few weeks at the helm, Mackay is looking to make changes to the squad, with some players destined to make their way out of Forthbank. “We have to move players on regardless because the squad is far too big as it is,” said the boss. “Something needs freshened up, it has maybe just gone far too stale
the club. I was always planning on trying to shake things up but Saturday just confirmed my thoughts. You hear all the time about learning more from a defeat and I learned an awful lot from that defeat and the manner of it, which was so disappointing.
“I don’t think it’s an attitude thing. I think the boys are working hard — it’s whether they are a bit low on confidence or maybe the quality just isn’t quite there in certain areas. It’s something we need to address.”
Stirling have hardly been out of the bottom four all season but Saturday was the first time in 2016/17 that they had slipped to 10th spot.
The Binos boss said: “It looks bad at the moment with us sitting at the foot of the table but the flip side is that we have a lot of games to play and it’s not as if it’s just ourselves — there are five or six involved in this relegation battle.
“We are that stage of the season where we have to start picking up points quickly or else we could find ourselves adrift at the bottom.
“I’m not sure if the guys turned up and thought ‘it’s Edinburgh City and they were taking a few beatings earlier in the season’ but we are nowhere near good enough to consider that.
“The game against Wick the week before should have been a bit of an eye opener because they could have got a replay in the overall picture of the game.”