Fifers boss apologises after costly mistake

Gary Naysmith apologised to his players after giving away the penalty which handed Stenny their first league win of the season.

Brown Ferguson’s men came back from two down against title favourites Alloa last week to snatch a draw so had shown the first win wasn’t far away.

Sadly for East Fife it came on Saturday as Colin McMenamin slotted away a second half penalty kick after Naysmith had handled in the own box.

The Fife gaffer said: “First and foremost I apologise to the players because it was my mistake.

“I had no idea where the player was and stuck my hand out and gave away a penalty.

“It’s the first time I’ve done anything like that in 21 years of playing football. I apologised to the lads because whatever we did right or wrong, if I hadn’t done that we’d have got a draw and moved on quickly.

“But they shouldn’t hide behind my mistake because after the first 20 or 30 minutes the performance wasn’t good enough.”

The Fifers started the game really well but came up against an inspired performance from Warriors No 1 Colin McCabe.

The on-loan Celtic youngster kept a clean sheet with a string of outstanding stops.

The first came after just a minute when he was at full stretch to tip a Chris Kane header over the bar and he also denied Kevin Smith before the visitors broke the deadlock.

East Fife stayed on the front foot in search of the equaliser. But McCabe was equal to everything and when he pulled off world class stops from Jamie Insall and Mark Lamont.