Reaction

It was another bad day for “The Wasps” today as East Fife won 3-0 at Recreation Park with the help of two penalties. Alloa had looked to bounce back after last weeks derby defeat by Stirling Albion but at no time in a poor game were they in control. The games turning point was when Alloa Athletic were denied a penalty, after Dougie Wilson’s cross into the box was clearly handled by an East Fife defender. The following minute, East Fife were awarded their second penalty of the afternoon, when the far side linesman, claimed the ball had been handled by Scot Buist. Four points from a possible twenty one is a very poor start to the season and the players will need to rediscover their desire to win games, grinding out results at this stage of the season if that is what’s required.

allan maitland after east fife defeat

After an hour gone in the game neither goalkeeper has had a save to make yet we were down 2-0 because of two penalty kicks, for the first one, when the ball comes to the end of the box the player hand balls it and the referee said it was not deliberate and then the player goes down for a penalty kick so that’s a penalty. Willie McCulloch the East Fife keeper, comes out of his box and hand balls it, the referee decides that it was not deliberate either but even worse when we should have had a penalty kick, immediately before their second award, which was so obvious everybody in the ground could see the ball hitting the player’s hand but the referee accepts that the linesman decided it was not a penalty. The ball goes up the other end, and in a tackle the ball breaks and Scot Buist gets up, falls over the guy and the linesman decided he hand balled it, before you know it you are 2-0 down. Defensively we were much better today, the goal keeper has not had a save and struggling as we are at the bottom of the league what you try and do is tighten things up and then get a break somewhere in the game to go and win it 1-0 and then build from there. You can’t get breaks when referees are giving penalties for that and not giving you penalties for what is undoubtedly a penalty so before you know it, their game becomes really easy, they are sitting back, and they can pass the ball quite happily and then they score a third goal when we make a mistake.