A chance to show Junior game is alive and kicking
There has never been an event like this here, footballwise. This will give everyone a boost in the community
IN the 110 years since the fifth Baron Talbot of Malahide offered up the land as a most generous gift, Beechwood Park has seen a lot. Nothing quite like this, though. Nothing like these impending 90 minutes that will place it at the centre of a nation’s consciousness.
The work started shortly after last Saturday’s derby win over Cumnock Juniors in the West of Scotland Cup to have the venue looking tip-top for the moment the BBC cameras begin today’s live lunchtime broadcast of Auchinleck Talbot’s Scottish Cup fourth-round visit from Championship promotion-seekers Ayr United.
Scaffolding is going up above the enclosure for the cameras. The pitch management company responsible for the playing surface have been hard at it since 8.30am on Sunday. A special mix of seaweed and iron has been applied to the turf to have it looking especially green for the audience at home.
In a way, that encapsulates what this occasion means for Talbot. An opportunity not just to show their own, storied club off at its best and its brightest, but to promote positively the entire scene and tradition they will represent.
Their ground has everything good about the Junior game. Tucked away behind a housing scheme, the mural on the wall beside the entrance gates reminds all visitors of Auchinleck’s proud history as a mining village. The spirit of the people keeps that burning strong.
It’s six quid for adults and three for kids for a league game. A cosy, welcoming Social Club where the very idea of £3-a-pint would be sacrilege. The ground is mainly terracing, you can bring your pets and, for most matches, wander around freely. The atmosphere can be intense — and certainly will be today with a 3,100 sell-out — and you are so close to the action you can almost smell the players’ Ralgex.
It recaptures the essence of what all levels of football in Scotland used to be before all-seated stadia and rising prices. And, yet, there is more to Beechwood than that.
Considering the old dressing rooms were burnt to the ground in the 1970s, this is a fine facility. Talbot have a Renegeration Committee with big plans, including floodlights somewhere down the line. There is a club shop, catering facilities, two covered areas and a stand with relatively new seating.
That there is a company maintaining the pitch shows. For mid-January, it is in good shape.
Club secretary Henry Dumigan has been part of the committee since 1977, enjoying by far the most successful time of the club’s history.
He understands that Junior football enjoys a certain reputation in some quarters. Referee Calum Scott being allegedly attacked during Cambuslang Rangers’ visit to Glenafton just before Christmas didn’t help.
This is a chance to redress the balance. To show the good side of the throwback culture of the Junior game and advertise the fact it can still have a thriving future. To let everyone watching in the country see and understand who they are and what they are capable of.
‘There has never been an event like this here, football-wise. Nothing near it,’ said Dumigan.
‘It’s another Ayrshire team, it will give everyone a boost in the community. The village is up for it.
‘It’s a great showcase, a chance to show us, as a club, and the Junior game at its best. It gets a lot of bad press at times, Junior football, but we hope we can rectify that.
‘It is true that the Juniors offers a connection back to when football really was a working-class game. It has a real identity, but you are also getting 100-per-cent effort in the games you go to watch. ‘Seldom do you not get that. I don’t think you see that in senior football. You see a lot of negative play. ‘Talbot, as a club, traditionally attack the other team. Maybe facing Ayr makes it a wee bit different, but that is our manager Tommy Sloan’s side of it.
‘We just want to show that we can host a game like this and present it in the best way we possibly can. I am confident we will.
‘We went to Hearts in the fourth round in 2012, but this is more important by far.’
Much like that game at Tynecastle, which ended in a narrow 1-0 defeat, Talbot are underdogs today. The fact that Ayr’s star striker Lawrence Shankland is expected to be fit simply lengthens their odds.
‘It is going to be a very, very hard game and I think we all ken that,’ continued Dumigan (left).
‘What I will say is that Talbot are capable.
‘We carry a punch. I know Ayr have quality players, but you could say the same about Cove Rangers and Fraserburgh in the previous rounds. We went up there and beat the best teams in the Highland League.’
These, of course, are uncertain times for the Junior game. When 25 clubs left the Junior ranks to join the East of Scotland League and the national game’s pyramid system in the summer, there was much talk about teams in the west planning to follow suit, too.
Talbot, however, remain committed to where they are in the grand scheme of things.
‘It doesn’t hold any great appeal for us at this moment in time,’ said Dumigan.
‘The last thing we want to be is left behind. We won’t be. But for the time being, we would rather be part of the Junior scene.
‘We have an identity. And you can lose that in the pyramid system.’