Gartcairn vs Darvel FC Saturday 31 January 2026

Today's game was played in deepest Airdrie, in what I think would best describe as dreich conditions. It's a tidy set up there, with an artificial pitch, which looks like quite a large playing surface. 

Lots of supporters that had travelled up from Darvel, and surrounding areas, were looking forward to the team kicking on from where we finished a strong performance, last week winning 4-2.  

The game started off fairly scrappy with neither side keeping possession of the ball for too long, but it burst into life in the 15th minute, and much to our surprise, Gartcairn took the lead. A run down the left wing saw a cross come into our box. This was not defended properly and the Gartcairn striker had an easy task to put the ball in the net. Fortunately, this seemed to spark our team into life, and after a couple near efforts on Gartcairn goal, we were awarded a penalty for hand ball in the Gartcairn box.  You have probably already worked out how these ends, but I will describe the spot kick anyway.

Ross Barbour slotted away his 3rd penalty in 3 games in the 19 th minute, to draw us level. The impressive thing is that Ross has put the ball into different places of the goal every time, so it's good that he has a variety of approaches in his locker. 5 minutes later, Jamie Bowman put us up 2- 1 with a powerful shot from outside the box, and we all thought (again) (Lot of thinking being done these days from the Darvel support!) that we were now on our way to a comfortable win.  That should have been the case, but we missed several good chances, to extend our lead and even rattled the inside of their right-hand post twice. So up 2- 1 at half time.

The second half was a bit of a dour affair, with neither team creating any clear-cut chances, and with the Darvel support checking their watches, we managed to score our third goal, courtesy of a goal from one of the under 20's players, substitute, Joe Dudgeon.  A bit of a tap in after good work on the left wing. On the 80th minute, we went up 4-1, thanks to another shot from close in from Jamie Bowman, earning him man of the match award.  Game over and relax! 

The final whistle brought the game to an end on a bit of a sour note, when one of the Gartcairn players caught his studs in the artificial surface and fell to the ground having twisted his knee, and he was obviously in a lot of pain. We have expressed our best wishes to Gartcairn, that we hope the injury is not too bad, and the boy makes a speedy recovery.  

To round off the day, we find ourselves in second place in the league after a run of 6 straight wins. I wonder if anyone about Darvel can remember when we last achieved this. 

Next Saturday sees us away (again) to St Roch’s, who play in the east end of Glasgow, at James McGrory Park. St Roch’s are 3 points behind us with 4 games in hand, so it goes without saying this is going to be a tough fixture.  However, we have a squad of players that are all playing together for each other with a lot of spirit, and that will hopefully see us rise to the challenge that awaits us.......