Clean sheet v Cove Rangers helps East Fife get back to winning ways
Goals at either end of their game at home to Cove Rangers on Saturday saw East Fife end a three-match winless streak and move to within three points of pole position in football’s William Hill League One.
Kieran Miller put manager Dick Campbell’s hosts in front past visiting goalkeeper Robbie Mutch with just five minutes on the clock, but a crowd of 620 at Methil’s Bayview Stadium had to wait until just three minutes ahead of the final whistle for fellow midfielder Michael McKenna, one of four lining up behind forwards Nathan Austin and Tommy Goss in a four-four-two formation, to increase their advantage and put the match beyond the reach of their visitors.
That was only the fourth-placed Fifers’ second win ever against the Aberdeen outfit – following one by 4-2 four years ago, also at home – and also their first clean sheet of the current league campaign.
Nine fixtures into the season, they’re now on 14 points and that’s just a win shy of table-toppers Hamilton and second-placed Stenhousemuir, both on 17.
Former Raith Rovers midfielder Paul Hartley’s Cove remain bottom of the table, on just two points.
Assistant manager Ian Campbell was glad to see his side chalk up their first victory since one by 2-1 hosting Queen of the South in mid-September at the weekend, telling East Fife TV: “It was quite positive. It was good to get the win.
“It was a hard game. I think that Cove are more than a decent side. Their position in the league doesn’t tell you half the story. I’m sure that once Paul gets his team back together, they won’t be far away.
“They’re a hard side to play against but we knew that anyway. They’ve got massive respect from us.
“Overall we probably deserved to win the game.
“There were a lot of good performances by us but there were one or two spells when they asked questions of us and we weren’t happy with one or two things, but overall it’s good.
“There were one or two things we’ll pick up on defensively in terms of seeing the game off but that’s countered by a lot of fantastic football we played. We’re quite a potent force when we get going.”
The 71-year-old is confident that bettewr is yet to come from his team, though, adding: “We are where we are but we can do an awful lot better.
“We should have had the game dead and buried at half-time but these things happen.
“In this division, I don’t think there’s much in it.”
Next up in the league for the Fifers is a trip to seventh-placed Alloa Athletic on Saturday, October 18, with kick-off at 3pm, and they go into that game looking to make amends for a 1-0 defeat at home to the Wasps in August by ending a four-fixture winless run against them dating back to March 2022.
Ahead of that, though, they’ve got a KDM Evolution Trophy tie at home to Scottish Lowland Football League side Celtic B this Friday and that kicks off at 7.45pm.
They go into that penultimate league round of the challenge cup tenth in the table, one point and five places better off than their Glaswegian visitors, as both target a top-22 finish to make it into December’s round of 32.