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Alloa Athletic kept up their 100% league record with a 1-0 victory over Peterhead, who had also won their opening league fixture. Although Alloa were not at their best in this game which had little opportunities for either side, Andy Scott could have opened the scoring inside the first fifteen minutes, but his rising shot went over the bar. Prior to the kick-off Alloa had to reshuffle their squad when Chris Townsley went over on his ankle in the warm up, unfortunately for Chris it might be worse than looked and he might have damaged ligaments. The wind did nothing to help either side but when the goal did come it took a piece of individual skill from Andy scott to supply the opening which Stuart Noble was on hand to score. Indeed shortly afterwords Alloa looked to have doubled their advantage in a near carbon copy of the first goal but the standside linesman raised his flag for offside. This is the first time since season 1999/2000 that “The Wasps” have won their opening two league games of the season, a season in which the team won promotion to the First Division.

Alloa Athletic                                 Peterhead
1 David Crawford                         1 John Bateman
2 David McClune                          2 David Donald
3 Marc McCafferty                       3 Stuart Smith
4 Scot Buist                                  4 Bobby Mann Bkd 82m
5 Scott Walker                             5 Callum McDonald
6 John Grant                                 6 Ryan Strachan
7 Andy Scott                                7 Graeme Sharp
8 Mark Brown                              8 David Ross
9 Brian Carrigan                           9 Martin Bavidge
10 Scott Agnew                           10 Dougie Cameron
11 Stuart Noble                           11 Zander Sutherland

12 Gary Carroll (9) 67m              12 Scott Michie (8) 82m
14 Ross Philp                               14 Peter Bruce (11) 58m
15 Hugh Kerr (7) 87m                 15 Paul Young
16 Jamie Hay                               16 Cameron Bowden

GK Stephen Hall                         GK Paul Jarvie
Referee : George Salmond       Asst: Willie Conquer & Steven Crichton

CROWD – 446

1 – 0 Stuart Noble (76 mins)

Sponsors Man of the Match – Scot Buist

allan maitland after peterhead victory

In the preview for today’s game, I had been saying all our previous games against Peterhead had been really open with plenty of goals, today I thought it was the complete opposite to that, neither of the two teams played well, we did improve after half time and created a couple of chances in the second half, however a least during these times when not playing well we are defending well, digging in, scot Buist and Scott walker did extremely well but it would be unfair to single these players out as the back four and the goalkeeper did well and at 1 -0 and Peterhead pushing for an equaliser David Crawford blocked a Martin Bavidge effort which Scot Buist cleared from the line. Even although we we are not playing well, we were defending well, and you always know with Brian Carrigan, Stuart Noble, Andy Scott and Hugh Kerr who came on late in the game, that we have something that might give us something different, and that’s exactly what happened Andy Scott provided the real quality getting away and creating the opportunity for Stuart Noble to score the vital goal. Then just right after the goal Andy Scott had another opportunity which was very similar to the goal but the referee ruled this effort as being offside, we are pleased to win but there is an awful lot more still to come from this team, we can play a lot better than that. I think the fact that it had been raining really heavy this week, but the park was really dry today with the sun and wind drying the park and the ball was really sticky on the park, I don’t think that helped. However not playing well and winning is a lot better than last year I can assure you, last year we played much better at times and lost 4-3 and 3-2, so I would take today’s result any day of the week. In the moment we are doing fine and I am pleased the way things are going.