In May when St Johnstone stunningly went up to lift the Scottish Cup to complete an unprecedented cup double, it was thankfully the last game played here without a crowd. The entire competition (and the semis/final from the year before) had been played without fans, and some of the “newer” SFA approved smaller clubs debuted in the competition without anyone, other club officials present.
My only games of 2020/21 had been in those optimistic days of early September last year at Ashington and Heaton Stannington in the extra preliminary round of the FA Cup, and when the opportunity arrived just three days short of a year later to finally watch Scottish Cup action, I had to be there. That decision meant forgoing the table topper at Kilmarnock with my charges Inverness CT going toe to toe for the outright lead of the Scottish Championship. Just like a few years ago when I drove by the Caledonian Stadium to bring Golspie Sutherland versus Burntisland Shipyard to light for Football Weekends in the Scottish Cup, this time I skirted the outskirts of Kilmarnock early on the Saturday morning heading down the road in the direction of Stranraer before nudging back in an easterly direction. We are off into the realm of the South of Scotland league.
On the banks of the River Cree the town of Newton Stewart is often referred to as the “Gateway to the Galloway Hills”. With a population of just over 4,000 it is one of a cluster of small tourist towns in the vast region that is Dumfries and Galloway. It is a fine town, with stunning vistas of the rolling hills the further up the hill you will head up if you are en route to watch some football here. The local football club carries the name of the town, with their nickname being the Creesiders due to proximity of the river, and they have been playing at the tidy, if compact Blairmount Park (capacity 1,500) for more than 100 years. The ground is up the back of Newton Stewart, and if you are headed to here with your car, parking is plentiful outside the venue, but if you have arrived by bus, the walk is maybe merely 15 minutes but it is largely an uphill climb past the school and to the town’s limit. Aside from the usual football catering inside the ground, anything more substantial would need to be downtown as Blairmount is rural, and the walk up the hill is predominantly sleepy residential.
I had watched Newton Stewart once before when one of their Scottish Cup campaigns came to an early end going down to Edinburgh side Civil Service Strollers. That wasn’t exactly a surprise, the Lowland League was up and running by then, and the CSS were one of the founding members. That extra step up in competition, a tier higher than Newton Stewart, gave the CSS that little edge, but I always recall the fine effort put in by the visitors despite the 3-0 loss. It was one of my first ever sightings of a South of Scotland club.
Six years later I was finally headed to Blairmount Park, where the visitors were also southern Scottish opposition, albeit from considerably further east on the borderlands with England, in the shape of the East of Scotland club Coldstream, who were headed across the country for this Preliminary Scottish Cup tie. This time around, based on the tiers of these clubs, Newton Stewart (sixth tier) were one higher than Coldstream and perhaps unusually for them were starting a Scottish Cup tie as slight favourites. Would that tag sit comfortably on the home side’s shoulders? Coldstream came into the game with just five points from seven games, with a one solitary win to their name, no pressure for Newton Stewart!
While I have seen Coldstream away more recently, my sole trip to their Home Park ground was a distant 49 years ago, when my original charges Meadowbank Thistle won 2-0 in the Scottish Cup, but if I hadn’t written that down I couldn’t have told you even that much! I do have the programme, and given this was a January tie, perusal of the pages showed The Streamers as Coldstream are known had rather oddly been given a bye, whereas we had to see off Arbroath at Gayfield in the First Round to play this weather delayed cup tie, bizarre. The game was finally played on 23rd January, two weeks late, when everyone else was playing the third round, and within a three week spell, we hadn’t just beaten the Borderers, but won the next round versus Clyde following a cracking replay, and headed to Dens Park for the first ever time, where the adventure ended. A Scottish Cup tie versus a league club was a maybe big day for Coldstream, but they probably felt a bit of a let down to have only drawn the poorly supported, eccentric third side of Edinburgh, but we did what was required and progressed at their expense. That said, our away following was as good as any in the bottom division in those days.
The South of Scotland league, perhaps like it’s northern sixth tier equivalent, The North Caledonian League, are perhaps both reluctant participants in the Scottish pyramid system, where very few teams involved have facilities necessary to step up one division let alone any further. That said, this shouldn’t diminish the fiercely competitive league Newton Stewart have been a member of since its inception in 1946, although an original South league had been going since 1892, when the 5th Kirkcudbrightshire Rifle Volunteers came out on top in a seven team league, an achievement they never repeated. Newton Stewart have won the newer version of the league three times, twice in the fifties and most recently in 1987/88, but they also won the original league three times as far back as 1897/98 to sit sixth on the roster of winners overall. The clubs greatest ever season was in 1955/56 when they did the treble winning every trophy up for grabs, a unique feat in the South of Scotland as no one had done it previously, or since!
Any future Championship that might come their way would now see the club involved in a three way play off with the winner of the West of Scotland and East of Scotland Premier Leagues for a solitary place in the Lowland League. This play off has only been part of the end of season diet once so far, four years ago now. (as the South league winners had no license or were Stranraer reserves, as well as covid null and voiding be some of the reasons). On that particular occasion I headed down to Castle Douglas to watch Threave Rovers play Kelty Hearts for that solitary promotion place. Despite a scoreless first half in the south, and the second half in Kelty, in between the Fifers had racked up 10-0 aggregate score, and it kind of sums up the gulf in class as well as the ambition of Kelty who are now flying high in Scottish League Two. These potential juggernauts of ambition await any South of Scotland league winner who would be going into these encounters going forward. However, who knows the future and any ambitious club from anywhere in the country can try their luck at progression now, a common goal in other countries, but a new game here.
The South of Scotland (SoS) league has proven to be a “vessel” for the curiously named EDUsports who played a clever game applying to join the Southern league despite being essentially a youth academy for French footballers based around Glasgow. They quickly got what they wanted, promotion to the Lowland League, and they are the only club from this league as yet to have stepped up, courtesy of a fifth tier extension in numbers rendering a play off requirement void that season. They have subsequently changed their name to Caledonian Braves (sounds more like an American sports team) and moved to Strathclyde Park having previously played in Annan, but they have retained a reserve side presence in the SoS league. They remain a club whose mantra seems loftier than the reality of their circumstances, Having fans and roots are essential to a club on the road to success.
When the Lowland League started Dalbeattie Star and Threave Rovers were amongst the inaugural composition, both having left the SoS league at varying stages. Gretna are also from the southern borderlands of Scotland, but their CV went from Northern League in England to Scottish League football, all the way to the top table under the financial input from Miles Brookson. That last promotion, coupled with being unable to play at Raydale were the straws that broke the dream. Miles passed away and a castle built on sand crumbled with the club very quickly declared insolvent and dissolved. Gretna 2008 are the reincarnation, but this club wishes to have nothing to do with the old club, and they started over in the East of Scotland, ahead of joining the Lowland, Sadly Threave were the first team to be relegated from the new fifth tier back to the SoS. This season Dalbeattie have been a revelation and briefly led the Lowland league opening the campaign with five straight wins. In a central belt dominated world of Scottish football, fine showing in the south or the north are always welcome in my book.
A year ago in Northumberland, those two FA Cup ties I watched were hosted by clubs wearing black and white stripes (a common kit in the realm of Newcastle it seems), and here I was enjoying the warm sunshine at Blairmount Park knowing that Newton Stewart were about to trot out of the pavilion wearing similar attire for my first Scottish Cup tie since Hibs knocked out Inverness at Easter Road in February 2020. Eighteen months on, the Scottish Cup was back.
The notion that Newton Stewart were slight favourites was blown out of the water very early on, with Coldstream 2 up in just eight minutes. The Creesiders were stunned, but they knuckled down and forced a few corners and with a little more composure might have got back into the tie, but as it was, The Streamers trotted off at the break three to the good. Having seen Coldstream blow a 3-0 lead at Tweedmouth a few years ago to give them the Berwick based side its first point of the season in January in a thrilling 3-3 draw, I hadn’t written off Newton Stewart just yet. The home side had much more purpose in the second half, and when they pulled one back early on, Coldstream started rocking a little. A cracking effort smacked the crossbar, and that stroke of good fortune was the wake up call the visitors needed to find some resolve to see it through.
Catching up with Gary McKie from Newton Stewart at half time, I asked what the club’s most famous Scottish Cup scalp had been, and to be honest it sounds as if early exits are the most common occurrence. Fort William was beaten, but even Newton Stewart knows that isn’t exactly a claim to fame. The 2020/21 competition might have unluckily pitted them with another in the Preliminary Round as fellow South sides St Cuthberts Wanderers as well as Wigtown and Bladnoch (who haven’t picked up a point at the time of writing) were given a bye. Threave Rovers also lost at the Preliminary stage, but mildly hilariously the very next day the two remaining sides mentioned above drew each other, guaranteeing a South of Scotland representative in the Second Round when the League Two sides get involved. However this wasn’t so much a case of the one that got away, in the final shakedown, Coldstream deserved their place in the hat for the next round.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable day in Newton Stewart, and the Road to Hampden is off and running, where my enthusiasm will doubtlessly start to wane if the semi’s or final are festooned with the usual suspects, but look at what happened in both the Scottish Cup and League Cup last term, so never say never, and come 2022/23 Newton Stewart will proudly go again in this fabulous old cup competition.
Football Adventures with James Rendall 