The Best of Times...

Last season (2007/2008): Brian Jack getting a yellow card for timewasting, after accidently kicking the ball into the enclosure when he meant to hit the wall so it would bounce straight back for the throw-in.

"Ref, you cannae get booked for being pish!"

Hilarious. But seriously, anything involving Brendan Gray. He was synonymous with our success in my eyes. When he was playing we were (mostly) winning. At the centre of The Treble that nobody will ever match. When he had to retire with his knee we promptly got relegated and have won nothing since. Simple choice, really. Sure, it's a team game. But I don't see any other juniors (and most seniors) scoring from the half way line like he did at Glencairn. Great in the air, in the tackle and two great Albertzean feet. And some pretty decent patter off the pitch as well. It'll never be like that again.  

The Worst of Times...

We were relegated in 2001/2002, and that was a truly dreadful season. Unlike last season's relegation (2007/2008) nobody at the club was of the opinion we were out of depth in a league with clubs who have far greater resources than our own. In fact, our manager (Harry Erwin) had spent a fair bit of money assembling a squad which he openly expected to be pushing for the championship title. Plus, we felt that we could better the year before's Scottish Cup semi-final appearance. It didn't quite pan out that way.

There we so many dreadful performances that year, but the memories which stick the most are of our only two decent signings that season, Dunky Sinclair and Steve McInulty (our currrent coaching team) being kicked off the park and badly injured in two different away fixtures.

Early in the season we had Auchenleck away in the West (at that stage I foolishly still felt we were capable of winning something that year). I don't know if it was because Dunky was a former Cumnock player or just because he was completely running the game, but he was a marked man. After the third or fourth bad tackle directed at his knee, off he went and that was him for the season. It was 1-0 to SBA when he had to go and it ended 3-1 to Talbot.

It got worse: away to Aberdeen East End (possibly so named because of their similarity to the unnecessarily violent BBC soap) in the whatever round of the Scottish, one of their over-committed players decided to karate/slide-tackle Nults on the half way line. His leg was sliced open and my dad (with me in the back) had to drive him to hospital. Needless to say, we got home late that night, which was a particular annoyance as I was due in for my first shift in my first job as a waiter. I was late and two weeks later the job was in the same state as Nults's leg...

Alex

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