East Fife were back at Bayview for the first time in 3 weeks following away matches at Forfar Athletic, Bonnyrigg Rose and Stenhousemuir. Last time out against Stenhousemuir, the Methil Men fell just short as the Warriors triumphed 2-1 and progressed to the next round of the Scottish Cup, despite a good Jack Healy goal for East Fife.
It was back to league this week and Greig McDonald was gearing up to take on 5th placed Elgin City in his first game after being announced as official East Fife manager earlier in the week. Five changes were made to the starting team that lost out to Stenhousemuir last time out with Alan Fleming, Scott Mercer, Joao Balde, Liam Parker and Alan Touten replacing Reece Beveridge, Stewart Murdoch, Ryan Schiavone, Liam Newton and Taylor Steven in the starting line-up.
The game got off to the worst possible start when they were reduced to 10-men within the first 5 minutes as Nicolson was dismissed for a high challenge on Balde. Despite being a man down, it was City who had the first chance when Hester was played through, but his weak effort was straight into the gloves of Fleming.
On the 15-minute mark, Elgin had another good chance when, once again, Hester was played in by Dingwall, but his attempted lob drops wide of the post.
After working their way up the pitch with some nice passing moves, East Fife grabbed an opener on the 20-minute mark when Ferguson’s corner was headed into the net by the unmarked Scott Mercer to give East Fife the lead.
Almost immediately, the visitors had the chance to draw level when Hester is beat the offside trap, rounded the keeper but dragged his effort wide under pressure from Fleming albeit with a strong shout for a penalty.
As half-time approached, Elgin had yet another chance to grab an equaliser with a well worked free kick which saw Dingwall in acres of space inside the box although, to the relief of the Fife faithful, his effort was well saved by Fleming at close range.
HALF TIME: East Fife 1-0 Elgin City
6 minutes into the second half, Elgin levelled the match when Dolzanksi sent Hester through 1-on-1 with Fleming who slotted the ball underneath the Fifer’s number 1 to give the Black and Whites a deserved goal.
Nearing the hour, East Fife passed up an opportunity to take the lead again when Healy drilled the ball across the face of goal however Shepherd was unable to steer the ball towards goal.
In the 66th minute, East Fife were awarded a penalty after Shepherd was bundled over inside the box. Alan Trouten confidently stepped up and rolled the ball past Hoban to restore East Fife’s advantage.
With 15 minutes left, Mercer saw his free kick bounce off the crossbar with the rebound falling to Balde however couldn’t get the ball under control and the Elgin defence were able to clear.
In the remaining 15 minutes East Fife made three changes with Shepherd, Trouten and Ferguson making way for Taylor Steven, Liam Newton and Pat Slattery who was making his 243 appearances for the club and climbing into the top 20 in the all-time East Fife rankings – overtaking East Fife legend Charlie Fleming.
After an uneventful final 15 minutes, the referee blew for full time, giving East Fife a much-desired home win and three points against a play-off rival.
The Methil men are back at Ochilview next week, this time for a league match up, against Stenhousemuir looking to keep up their 100% start to the second quarter.
FULL TIME: East Fife 2-1 Elgin City
Report by Andrew Laing
East Fife Team: Fleming, Mercer, Steele, Denham, Parker, Millar, Healy, Balde, Ferguson (Slattery 90+2’), Shepherd (Steven 78’), Trouten (Newton 84’)
Elgin City: Hoban, Mailer (Allan 89’), Nicolson, Dolzanski, Draper, McHardy, Dingwall, MacEwan (Lawrence 75’), Antoniazzi (Young 11’), Cameron, Hester
Referee: Iain Sneddon
Attendance: 439