Montrose's last stand

This Saturday, Garry Wood could become the last man to captain Montrose in a SPFL game

'Montrose is a coastal resort town and former royal burgh in Angus, Scotland.  It is situated 38 miles (61 km) north of Dundee between the mouths of the North and South Esk rivers. It is the northernmost coastal town in Angus and developed at a natural harbour that traded in skins, hides and cured salmon in medieval times. 

With a population of approximately 12,000, the town functions as a port, but the major employer is GlaxoSmithKline, which was saved from closure in 2006. The skyline of Montrose is dominated by the 220-foot (67 m) steeple, designed by James Gillespie Graham and built between 1832 and 1834. 

Montrose is a town with a wealth of architecture, and is a centre for international trade. It is an important commercial port for the thriving oil and gas industry. It is known for its wide thoroughfare and high street which leads to picturesque closes containing secluded gardens. The town has a view of a two-mile square tidal lagoon, Montrose Basin, which is considered a nature reserve of international importance. It is the largest inland salt water basin in the UK, and an important habitat for the mute swan. Just outside Montrose is the 18th Century House of Dun, designed by the Scottish architect William Adam and built in 1730 for David Erskine, 13th Laird of Dun.'

Wikipedia makes Montrose sound rather more interesting than what I remember.  But then I've not been there since 2007.

When I studied and worked in Aberdeen, I had a good friend named John Dixon who was from the town and supported the team.  When I say supported, I mean supported - they weren't his wee team, they were his team.  That takes some dedication, as supporting 'The Mo' is a labour of love, but without the love.  This is their nineteenth consecutive season in Scotland's fourth tier.  In that time, they've made the end-of-season promotion playoffs once, and finished in the top half of the table on only three other occasions.  It takes a special sort of person to have a season ticket at this sort of club; loyal, steadfast, stubborn as hell, and with a sense of humour like Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show.  They aren't glass-half-full types, they aren't even glass-half-empty-types.  The glass is empty, and then someone stole it.  Gloryhunters need not apply.  

The first time I visited Links Park with John was, according to Soccerbase, on Saturday 9th April 2005.  It tells you something about my mindset that I was actually enthusiastic about the prospect of watching a match between the bottom (East Stirlingshire) and second-from-bottom (the home side) teams in the entire league.  Apparently three hundred and twenty-nine people were there; I rather doubt that the total was much more than half that.  There was a minute's silence pre-kickoff for the death of Pope John Paul II; if you think a minute's silence is slightly awkward when you're in a crowd of a few thousand, try it when there's only a couple of hundred.  There was a lot of staring at feet.

Apparently, Willie Collum was referee that day.  He's gone up in the world since then.

East Stirling were so hapless that they won only 5 games in that whole season...yet they scored first, at which point the home support actually burst into laughter.  It might have been a goalkeeping blunder, by the infamous Jim 'Fingers' Butter.  That day I think John introduced me to the chap who wrote (and, I'm delighted to say, has recently restarted) the Gable End Graffiti blog.  He might have been the same bloke who spent the entire game loudly trolling an East Stirling striker called Ross Donaldson, who looked, and played, rather like Homo Erectus.  Eventually, with three minutes left, and Montrose 4-1 up, Donaldson lost the rag, kicked someone and got sent off...all because this one Montrose fan had wound him up.  This is the sort of stuff that makes lower league football great.

At some point during the match, Montrose put a few passes together and I made the risky decision to say loudly "It's just like watching Brazil!".  In a more just world, I'd have been lynched for being a smartarse.

My other three visits to that ground were also memorable in their own way.  Two were derbies, which was probably my motivation for going down.  There was a 1-0 defeat to Arbroath where the Mo were so abject that they barely created a chance against a side who played for the whole second half with ten men.  Despite this, they somehow won a penalty in the second half.  A midfielder called Martyn Fotheringham, who John had previously told me was their only half-decent player, stepped up confidently and smashed the ball so far over the bar that it cleared the stand behind the goal and now orbits Mars.

Later, there was a midweek League Cup tie with Brechin City, who were a division above, a fact which made the tie seem marginally more glamorous.    For 100 minutes (on a work night, the game only went to bloody extra-time), bugger all happened.  Then Montrose got a free kick 20 yards out, and a little winger called Jay Stein ran up and toe punted it straight into the bottom corner, beating the keeper with sheer power.  Stein and his team-mates ran off to the corner flag like crazed lunatics, celebrating as if they'd won the World Cup.  So Brechin only went and equalized within a minute and nicked a winner with ten minutes left.  Ho-hum.

That was the first season Links Park had used astroturf, and courtesy of a schoolfriend of John's who volunteered as the matchday announcer, we got to have a wee dander on the pitch afterward.  It was absolutely lovely, by the way.  Everyone should have a pitch like that, whatever John Rankin says.

Despite the surface, the last time I was there, a Friday night game against Elgin (Scotland were playing Ukraine the next day), nearly resulted in an abandonment because of fog.  Willie Collum was supposedly the ref that day too (our paths, it seems, are forever entwined).  Morag Pirie was one of the assistants; one spectator offered to walk her back to her car after the game, an invitation which she sensibly ignored.  The twenty-minute delay to allow the mist to clear simply meant we got home late after a dire goalless draw.

So, despite (or because of) these experiences, I've been left with a bit of a soft spot for wee Montrose.  I've always felt compelled to keep an eye out for their score each week.  They were even my team of choice on Football Manager 2007, where I guided them to two consecutive promotions with a squad of English league rejects - including one Ryan Shawcross, incidentally - before getting bored.  The aforementioned Fotheringham had a 'long shots' rating of 20, which was enormously helpful.  And reading Gable End Graffiti was one of my inspirations to start blogging.

And so I feel a pang of worry for their current circumstances.  For Montrose are in a pickle; in previous seasons, bringing up the rear in League Two has carried no more punishment than the ignominy of knowing that everyone else thinks you're the worst team in the whole country.  This year, it means a playoff to avoid dropping out of the whole league.  They lost the first leg to Brora Rangers 1-0 last Saturday, with the return game against Brora this weekend.  Mr Gable End Graffiti resurrected his wonderful blog simply to record for posterity their run towards apparent doom; he documents far better than I can the repercussions for the club if they start next season in the Highland League.

I know the reasoning behind a pyramid and I know why, ultimately, it is a good idea to relegate crap teams from the bottom of the SPFL, yet there seems something terribly sad about the prospect of this old club being replaced by Brora, who appear to have followed the Gretna path to success but who have made it crystal clear that they want to walk the Highland League every season without having to actually go up to the SPFL.  Montrose don't want to go down, Brora don't want to go up.  It's crazy.

And because of how much I enjoyed going to Links Park, and how daft this situation is, I hope to goodness that they win on Saturday and avoid the abyss.  If Scottish football starts next season without Montrose FC in the league for the first time since 1929, it'll probably cause barely a ripple in the greater scheme of things.  But it'll be a damn shame.


Lawrie Spence (LS) has ranted and spouted his ill-informed opinions on Narey's Toepoker since September 2007.  He has a life outside this blog.  Honestly.