Basement battle

Saturday November 19th was the first football game I attended since the decision to up root and leave Ireland. Being Edinburgh based the game was a no brainer, it was Edinburgh City v Cowdenbeath. Sure why wouldn't you?.

A few months ago I blogged about my first ever game in Scotland while on a short trip which was seeing Hibernian dismantle Greenock Morton 4-0 at Easter Road. For this I decided to give the other club a shot. Edinburgh City are newly promoted to the Scottish football league this season having seen off East Stirling in a play-off match last May. The step up has so far proven to be a challenge but in the past few weeks City have seemingly turned a corner and had some decent results. One such result was putting League 2 leaders Forfar Athletic out of the cup which set up a tie with East Fife this coming weekend.

Their opponents in this game were Cowdenbeath a side in a free-fall. They went into this game two places above City at the bottom of League Two and to give an idea of their free-falling nature, they were in the championship two seasons ago. Two successive relegations and an awful start to this season have them residing well off any promotion picture and it all set up a fixture that few would've thought could happen not so long ago. While Cowdenbeath were in the championship, getting thumped 10-0 by another Edinburgh team in Hearts, city were winning the Lowland league (part of the 5th tier) with ease. Quite a turn around in two seasons.

City play their home games at the Meadowbank stadium down the road from Hibernian's Easter road. It does feature a pet hate of mine with a running track but the main and well only stand adds an element of charm.

Conditions wise it was bitter. A 3pm Saturday kick-off with a low sun soon gave way to a bitterly cold and crisp evening. Cowdenbeath bought a sizeable number of the 352 total attendance and were in good spirits surprisingly. They didn't have far to travel being based north of the forth.
The visitors started disastrously giving up two glorious chances for City. Had City a striker in form then they would've been two or three up in the first half. Cowdenbeath's keeper, David McGum keeping his side in the game. Cowdenbeath got back into the game with some bursts forward, one of which was foiled by the impressive Joe Mbu, whose sliding challenge on one of the attacks was as brilliant a challenge as you will see. Just before half-time Cowdenbeath struck with Kris Renton given the freedom of the city to nod home.

Half-time cups of tea were needed to brace the bitterness and the second half began with Cowdenbeath asserting some control on the game, hitting the bar later in the half before a sitter was spurned. The challenges were flying in however from both sides, not much pulling out. Eventually city did rescue a point when Dougie Gair pounced on a loose ball in the box to shoot low into the net. That came after an Ouzy See header flashed narrowly wide of McGum's post. The points were shared which wasn't enough to elevate City off the bottom but does keep them within reach of the sides above them . It keeps Cowdenbeath in among the cluster of sides that reside in the lower half of the division.