Weekend Break for the ‘Loons’

Forfar Athletic management and players will get an opportunity this coming weekend to recharge the batteries’ with fifteen cinch league2 fixtures still remaining.

Their scheduled opponents this Saturday Stirling Albion are of course in the Scottish Cup fourth-round action visiting Ibrox on Friday evening.

This fixture will be re-arranged for a Tuesday evening in February with the exact date for the trip to Forthbank expected to be confirmed by the SPFL before the week is out.

The ‘Loons’ will make their return to league action on Saturday week the 29^th of the month when Edinburgh City will be the visitors to Station Park.

For only the second time to date this campaign we will be at home on two consecutive weekends with Albion Rovers providing the opposition on the first Saturday in February.

The players took part in a full training session on Monday evening with a closed-door bounce game scheduled for later in the week.

Steven Anderson was an absentee at the session over in Fife last night.

He sadly suffered a dislocated shoulder in the second half at Annan on Saturday and despite the tremendous efforts of the medical team at Galabank to carry out on-site remedial action, he had to head to Dumfries Royal Infirmary to have the shoulder put back into place.

Steven had suffered a slight adverse reaction over the weekend and a full diagnosis is still awaited, but hopefully, he will not be sidelined for too long.

Saturday’s contest at Annan was another great advert for football at league2 level, though if you bought Monday’s Courier you would have questioned whether the game actually took place!   

The Athies headed home slightly disappointed not to have picked up a full three-point haul at the end of the day, especially with Kelty also dropping a couple of points.

Looking forward to this coming Saturday there is only one fixture currently scheduled at our level, Cowdenbeath being due to entertain Stranraer.

Kelty Hearts have a mouth-watering Scottish tie at home to cup holders St. Johnstone to look forward to on Saturday before they head north to face Elgin City in a re-arranged fixture on Tuesday the 25^th.

A full card of fixtures is then scheduled for Saturday week.

Apart from Edinburgh City’s visit to Station Park, leaders Kelty will host Stranraer, Cowdenbeath head to Albion Rovers, Stirling Albion visit Annan and Stenhousemuir welcome Elgin City to Ochilview.

Prior to the visit of Gary Naysmith’s side who incidentally head north to Pittodrie on cup duty this weekend, Gary Irvine will hope to have a new face or two in the home ranks.

The manager has a couple of targets in mind to bolster a squad whose numbers have been depleted in recent weeks with the departure of Steven Doris, Mark Gallagher and Michael Travis.

As always you will hear any definite news first on the club’s various media channels.