'He's a true professional': Glenrothes FC co-boss John Martin praises matchwinner Stuart Cargill for excelling despite threat of imminent lengthy ban

Playing his first of three league games for Glens before a potential ten-game ban from East of Scotland League beaks for ‘shouting abusive language’ during the recent 4-4 home league draw against Tynecastle, Cargill, 35, showed his worth by helping his team to a win which lifts the 13th-placed side four points above the relegation zone on 19 points from 21 matches.

"Cargy's always motivated to be scoring goals,” Martin told the Glenrothes Gazette. “He’s done that all his career, but maybe the thought that he might be banned for a while soon gave him an added feeling that he wanted to push for more goals.

"Cargy’s done great in the game and he’s a true professional. He was geeing all the guys on and helped the younger guys with his experience.

"He’s scored a vital goal for us and even if he does get a suspension he’ll still be round about the club and the boys cheering them on, he’s that type of guy.

“We can beat anybody on our day if we turn up and don’t give cheap goals away and I think on Saturday that was the case.

"We battled with Broxburn really well and we got our rewards.

"It was a really good three points, especially against the league leaders. We definitely enjoyed it on Saturday.”

Yet Saturday’s win didn’t start well for Glens as the visitors netted a 24th-minute penalty which Lewis Turner scored after being fouled in the box by Blair Smart.

But Jordan McKenzie turned in a Reece Brown cutback to make it 1-1 by half-time, before Glens went ahead through McKenzie’s second after Cargill’s free-kick from the left.

Athletic were then reduced to ten men when Nicky Locke picked up a second booking for diving, with Cargill’s penalty after a foul on Fionn McLeod-Kay putting the home team 3-1 up before Marky Munro shot home to pull one back three minutes into injury time.

Martin added: "The Broxburn penalty was a needless foul to give away as the boy was going away from goal and big Blair didn’t really need to dive in. But I thought apart from that one mistake, Blair was absolutely magnificent.

"Broxburn lost their discipline a wee bit when we took the lead because it wasn’t going their way, they were league leaders and they didn’t like it.

"It wouldn’t be Glenrothes without us then losing a late goal but I’m just thankful we were two goals ahead this time instead of one.

"There’s a bit of breathing space for us in the league now but we’re actually looking at the teams above us and trying to catch them.

"We want to try and gather as many points as we can and not look at the teams behind us.”

Glenrothes have a league game at Dundonald Bluebell tomorrow (Tuesday), also have a league trip to Penicuik Athletic this Saturday which kicks off at 2.30pm.