William Hill Scottish Cup 3rd Round replay, Meadowbank Stadium, Wednesday 7th December 2016
Edinburgh City 0
East Fife 1 (Kane 55’)
Man of the Match: Kyle Wilkie
East Fife XI: Goodfellow, Mercer, Slattery, Kane, Page, Kerr, Brown, Insall (Austin 87’), Smith, Wilkie, Robinson (Wallace 67’)
Subs Not Used: Hurst, Mutch
Booked: None
Edinburgh City XI: Stobie, Caddow, Dunsmore, Harrison, Laird, Muhsin (See 71’), McFarland (McConnell 71’), Gair, Allum, Guthrie (Cummings 71’), Mbu
Subs Not Used: Dunn, Porteous, Donaldson, Antell
Booked: Harrison
Referee: David Lowe
Attendance: 397
East Fife got back to winning ways with a 1-0 win over Edinburgh City in the William Hill Scottish Cup 3rd round replay. East Fife made two changes to the team that drew with Edinburgh in the original tie with Pat Slattery and Jason Kerr replacing Mark Lamont and Gary Naysmith who departed for Queen of the South earlier in the week.
As with the original tie the game took a long time to get going with both teams reduced to long-range efforts in the first 20 minutes. The visitors should have taken the lead on 24 minutes when Smith got to the by-line and whipped in a cross from the left but Robinson could only head over from a couple of yards. Insall then had a shot blocked on the line after Page headed down Robinson’s corner. Against the run of play, Edinburgh were presented with a glorious chance to take the lead when the East Fife defence switched off allowing Allum to latched onto a long ball but his lob over Goodfellow was easily swept up by Kerr.
East Fife looked a far better team after the break and took a deserved lead on 55 minutes. Mercer’s corner was headed clear only as far as Robinson who lifted the ball back in and with City defender Laird remaining on the goal line, playing everyone onside, Kane was unchallenged put the ball past Stobie. A well work free-kick from Edinburgh saw Allum hit the post but the flag was raised for off-side before anyone could reach the rebound. East Fife were denied a stonewall penalty of 64 minutes when Smith was bundled over in the box by Caddow but referee Lowe was unconvinced. The home side’s best opportunity of the match came 10 minutes from time when Cummings volley from 25-yard forced Goodfellow in into a save low to his right.
It wasn’t pretty but Kane’s goal was enough to give East Fife their first win in eight games.
After the match Dougie Anderson spoke to East Fife TV:
“The objective was to get into the next round of the cup. Edinburgh City are on a good run of form, some great results they’ve had recently. We knew it was going to be a hard game, it was a hard game with difficult conditions, the pitch was heavy, the surface wasn’t the best and it’s a tight pitch. I thought the lad did extremely well; they stuck to the game plan. It wasn’t the prettiest game of football but we’re into the next round. Credit to them. Difficult circumstances that we’re all aware of, the gaffer is away now and it’s not easy when they don’t know their future but they were a credit to themselves tonight, absolutely different class.”