Newburgh’s hopes of finishing 2024 with any form of positive outcome looked unlikely with the visit of both the division’s top two teams to East Shore Park. Linton came away 2-1 winners prior to the Christmas break, whilst leaders Lochgelly made a sluggish Burgh side pay in convincing fashion.
The game was already dead and buried inside the opening 20 minutes as a hungrier Lochgelly side found themselves three goals to the good, thanks to a Burgh side that were still in the festive spirit of giving gifts away to the guests.
If Burgh needed a warning shot across the bows, the visitors were kind to oblige with a header from a corner hitting the base of the post inside the opening minute.
Moments later the warning was ignored and Haggett rose highest to a long throw into the Burgh box and his headed flick looped over everybody on its way into the far corner past a bemused Newburgh defence.
In the 9th minute, same routine, same outcome as a long throw into the box was met again by a Lochgelly head for Scott Russell to head home unchallenged from close range.
Burgh had their own routine that seemed to be yielding some kind of results as Owen McCallion was giving the Lochgelly left back the run around and catching him for pace several times. In the 18th minute McCallion latched onto a through ball, hold off his man but unfortunately couldn’t find the target.
In the 20th minute Lochgelly made it 3-0 as they were able to slice through the heart of the Burgh defence once again with Russell played through and he rounded Scott Kyles, deputising for the injured namesake, Joe, to score.
Kyles was in for a torrid afternoon, and matters weren’t helped in the 34th minute as a miscommunication between CJ Thomson and Kyles left Burgh with eggs on their faces as Thomson’s backpass rolled past Kyles outside the box and Boundy was left with the simplest of tasks to walk the ball into an empty for 4-0.
Things went from bad to worse a moment later as Lochgelly cut through Burgh like a knife through (very warm!) butter and a superb cross from Meldrum was placed on plate for Boundy to head home his second goal in as many minutes.
McCallion kept his, almost solo, mission to get the home side back into the game and managed to reduce arrears in the 39th minute when he raced onto a Lyall Brown pass and, again, outpaced Meldrum to run in on goal and this time, he found the far corner with a low shot to make it 1-5.
McCallion wasn’t giving up and in the 41st minute he again found himself running towards the visiting goal, but this time his low cross from a tight angle was cleared behind for a corner.
In the 43rd minute McCallion’s dogged play won possession back by the corner flag. As he ran towards goal, his pass found Tam Hampson and Brown. Lochgelly managed to clear the ball but only as far as Mackenzie Williamson on the edge of the area and his low snapshot went wide of post.
On the stroke of half time, Kyles did well to save from Dylan Geddes and then save the follow-up header.
In the 47th minute Burgh still had not learnt their lessons from Lochgelly’s long throw-in as the ball found its way through a host of bodies and found Boundy towards the back post with the easiest tap in for probably his easiest hat-trick with two of his goals absolutely gifted to him.
In the 53rd minute Lochgelly resorted to trying to help Burgh out as Williamson’s cross from the right was headed against his own crossbar by Fotheringham. In the 59th minute came goal number 7 as Russell also took the opportunity to complete his own hat-trick with a smart one-touch passing move into the Burgh box with Boundy laying off for Russell to dispatch home from close range.
The game was long-dead and the visitors took their foot off the gas and made a number of changes and the clock ran down for an extremely painful and disappointing performance and result. Despite the opposition being far hungrier, it was an terrible end to 2024 and one would hope the New Year’s Resolution would be for several to work much harder, get fitter and improve on the concentration, whilst continuing to improve on the seeds of some good performance (which, despite this result, there HAS been).
2025 will be another difficult year, but if the team can get back to the levels we’ve seen and know they’re capable of, things can pick up.
