Carluke Rovers travelled to Stonehouse today for this West of Scotland Cup game against Royal Albert FC. This was one of the few games to be played on Saturday as due to the frost the pitch was very uneven and hard which was not to make for a fast flowing passing game.

The game started and it did not take long to realise that this was going to be a tight match as there was very little between the two teams. It was going to take a bit of luck for either team to break the deadlock and it came in the 20th minute. Royal Albert midfielder ran onto a through ball in the Rovers box and when the Carluke defender made a challenge the Albert player went down and the Referee duly gave a penalty. It looked very soft but the Albert player duly dispatched the ball into the back of the net. 1-0 to Royal Albert.

Directly from the kickoff Carluke nearly got the equaliser. Good play in the middle of the park saw the ball fed through to Josh Bell whose shot from close range was palmed wide by the Royal Albert keeper. The game was finely balanced but it was Royal Albert who came close to doubling their lead when their big No9 got up for a header but it went just wide of the far post.

Then in the 36th minute Carluke gave themselves a mountain to climb. There did not appear to be any danger as the Royal Albert player tussled with the Rovers defender at the corner flag. However he managed to break free and run along the bye line beating another Rovers player before cutting it back to their No10. He in turn, with his back to goal swiveled and knocked the ball into the bottom corner. 2-0 to Royal Albert.

This was to be the score at halftime with Carluke having a lot of work to do to get back into the game. However it was Royal Albert who were to create the first real chance when a header was well saved by Josh McGill and the resultant effort hit off the inside of the post and was cleared to safety. Then on the hour mark a corner from Dominic Small was met by Barry Fraser but his header was directly at the Royal Albert Keeper and he saved it well.

For the bulk of the second half Carluke were in the ascendancy but were finding it very difficult to breach the Albert rearguard. Then in 67 minutes another corner found the head of Reiss Stewart but his effort went just past the post. However Royal Albert were dangerous on the break and in the 83rd minute it took a great save by Josh McGill in the Carluke goal to stop Royal Albert extending their lead further, There was to be no more scoring and in the end Royal Albert ran out comfortable winners 2-0.

Photography by Kevin Ramage