High-flying Hotspur not thinking of promotion
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HIGH Ormlie Hotspur are sitting pretty at the top of the CAFA Division Two table but no-one is allowed to mention the “P” word.
Despite the early stage of the league season, Hotspur have been spoken of as favourites to win promotion to the top flight.
They certainly gave added weight to such talk when they beat fellow contenders Wick Thistle 2-1 at Ormlie Park.
Ross Macleod had given Thistle the lead but the same player was guilty of failing from the penalty spot when his effort was saved by home keeper Gordon Clark.
Step forward Andrew Mackay whose brace of stunning strikes delivered victory and sent Hotspur top of the table – two points clear of Castletown.
Manager Ewan McElroy said: “It’s far too early to start saying the ‘promotion’ word – if I did it would be very foolish of me to do so.
“We’re in a good place right now and the boys showed tremendous character in coming back against a very good Wick Thistle side.
“Unfortunately, we started off sluggishly and we paid the price when Ross Macleod gave them the lead.
“It wasn’t until the penalty save that we really got going. Maybe seeing Gordon make that save gave the boys some impetus to go and retrieve the situation.
“We started to compete again and two absolute screamers from Andrew won it for us.
“He was practising his long-range shots in the warm-up and they were going all over the place.
“But it appears he was just filtering out the bad shots away from his locker and saved the good ones for the game.
“We are delighted to be top but we’re not predicting anything yet just because that’s where we are in the league.”
Elsewhere, Stuart Sinclair was a relieved manager as Watten finally chalked up their first win of the season with a 2-1 win at Keiss.
Shane Honeyman and Michael Robertson got the goals for Watten, with Keiss grabbing a late consolation through Colin Mackenzie.
Sinclair said: “It’s been a hard start to the season for us having to play the best three teams in the division to kick things off.
“However, we’ve played some decent football in those games and that gave us some encouragement for when we start playing the rest that we can win games.”
Keiss boss Graham Banks insisted his young squad will get better as they gain more experience.
He said: “I don’t want to be too hard on them as they’re a young side. I’m sure as the experience comes the results will get better.
“But when you’re a country side and you get a good player, they then get signed up by one of the Wick sides.”
