Search: 'Stirling Albion'

 Simon Inglis mourns the loss of traditional floodlights from the horizon due to the changing trends in stadium construction

We’ve all been there. Driving to a game, negotiating the ring-roads and roundabouts of Awaysville, then growing hotter and more bothered as you realise the back streets in which you’re mired are nowhere near the ground. What’s worse is you’ve never had to look at a map before. All you’ve ever done was take more or less the right turn-off from the motorway and then drive blithely toward that distant set of floodlights on the horizon, like a moth homing in on a night light.

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Falkirk appear to hae been saved from relegation by Airdrie's demise. But James Teideman is still bitter about the fate of clubs excluded from the SPL

It is the night that Bayer Leverkusen host Manchester United in the second leg of their semi-final. The Cham­p­ions League music that welcomes the teams on to the pitch at Brockville Park floats with comic irony over the terraces – as if it isn’t surreal enough that Ev­erton are playing here tonight for the honour of lifting the Alex Scott memorial trophy, highlight of Falkirk’s 125th anniversary celebrations. The travelling fans must have had a laugh as they surveyed the crumbling “stadium” that sums up the melancholy malaise of small Scottish clubs.

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After over 120 years East Stirlingshire FC could be no more if a proposed move goes through. Ken Gall reflects on a club with a rich history and their fight to survive

Even the kindest of souls would have to ack­nowledge that East Stirlingshire FC have not been one of the major players in Scottish foot­ball history. Winners of precisely no major honours and with a grand total of no cup final appearances, even their apparently geo­graph­ically specific name tends to leave fans scratching their heads as to the club’s location (“near Falkirk” is the best most can come up with).

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Cris Freddi trawls further through the dustbins of 20th century football by selecting champion crap sides from the merely awful

This is a category you know you’re not going to be able to cover properly. For a start, there are so many poor teams around, at every level. Selkirk losing 20-0 in the Scottish Cup, Hyde 26-0 to Preston in the FA Cup, the Austrian club who lost every match in a season except the one in which their opponents didn’t turn up because they’d folded. There’s always some schoolboy side cheerfully conceding dou­ble figures in every game. We could all make acceptable lists and none would look the same.

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Saturday 1 It emerges that the clubs planning a European super league are to meet with the European Commission to establish whether UEFA or FIFA would be able to prevent a new competition being set up outside their control. Meanwhile, Alex Ferguson joins in the debate, saying: "There's been a lot of panic in every quarter about this. But when you assess English football with all the great matches you can get, does anyone really want it broken up?" Keith Gillespie looks set to be Newcastle's first sale of the summer, joining Middlesbrough for £3.5 million. Boro are also said to be in competition with Aston Villa to sign Juninho from Atletico Madrid. Celtic begin their defence of the Scottish Premier by thrashing Dunfermline 5-0.

Sunday 2 Pierre van Hooijdonk asks to be transfer-listed in the wake of Kevin Campbell's departure for Trabzonspor, saying, "I'm not prepared to let my career go down the pan. Right now the team is not good enough to survive in the Premiership." Dave Bassett responds: "Once again Pierre's lack of control has surfaced. He's got four years left on his contract." In the Scottish League match held over from yesterday, Hearts beat Rangers 2-1. There'll be another 16 English and Scottish league matches broadcast on Sky before the end of August. Spoilt, we are.

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