Pre-Season Friendly, Wednesday 18th July 2007

East Fife 9 Whitehill Welfare 0

WHITEHILL WELFARE were overwhelmed by SFL Third Division promotion contenders East Fife at New Bayview and found themselves on the wrong end of a 9-0 scoreline in this pre-season friendly.

The Fifers, who narrowly lost out on promotion at the end of last season, were too strong for a Whitehill side which had played well against Second Division Airdrie United at the weekend.

"I never like making excuses after a game of football although I thought that for the first 25 minutes we did very well," said Whitehill's joint manager, Rab Finlay. "East Fife have some very good players and at times we were caught a little bit off the pace of the game."

The Fifers took the lead in the tenth minute when Craig O'Reilly hit a 30-yard shot which took a wicked deflection over Ryan McGurk in the Whitehill goal. O'Reilly added a second before John Martin completed the first-half scoring.

After the break O'Reilly completed his hat-trick then Dougie Cameron scored with an exquisite shot from the edge of the penalty box. Stephan Fortune hit home the sixth with a powerful shot before Steve Nicholas, with a solo effort and a tap in, added to Whitehill's woes and Lloyd Young completed the scoring ten minutes from time.

The East Fife goalkeeper, Willie McCulloch, never had a serious save to make and the Bayview men were simply too powerful for the East of Scotland side.

"We made some basic errors by giving the ball away cheaply and East Fife were at a completely different level of fitness," added Finlay. "It was a disappointing result yet our goalkeeper, Ryan McGurk, was probably our best player. East Fife are a very good side who will be close to gaining promotion."

East Fife: McCulloch, Guy, Linton, Smart, Fotheringham, Blackadder, Martin, Stewart, O'Reilly, Gordon, Cameron. Subs: Young, Nicholas, Fortune, Mills, Paterson, Mathers.

Whitehill Welfare: McGurk, Cornett, Lee, Kidd, Wilkes, McKenna, Morrison, Pryde, Gormley, Doig, Cairns. Subs: Calvey, McDonagh, McIntosh, Miller.

Report courtesy of Keith Anderson