The Elgin City Under 14 squad are making steady progress. After a very short pre-season the lads went into a friendly against Caley Thistle feeling quietly confident. This game then turned into a nightmare for us, as we were well and truly beaten by a well-drilled and very organised Caley team. Although slightly under strength the lads knew that this type of performance was not acceptable from an Elgin City team and it was obvious a lot of hard work was required on the training ground. 

Following on from the Caley game a lot of work has been carried out in training on team shape and passing.

The first SFL game for the lads was against Queens Park. With Lesser Borough unplayable, we were allowed to use Borough Briggs. Although the game ended in defeat the performance was a massive improvement on the Caley game and a lot of positives could be taken from the game. The 14’s battled hard and gave everything they had. Always trying to play a passing game the team kept a nice shape until the final 20 minutes or so when they started to tire. Goal scorer in this game was Andy Gray.

Next up was an away game against Alloa on their new synthetic surface. For many of the lads this was the first time they had played on such a surface so it took a while to get used to the bounce and run of the ball. However when we got into our stride we played some very attractive football, passing the ball around very well and getting the ball into the wide areas at the earliest opportunity. The Alloa keeper was tested on many occasions and what was particularly pleasing was to see the Elgin youngsters finish the game as the stronger team. Again, although this was a defeat for the 14’s there were a tremendous amount of positives taken from this game and the lads showed that the hard work in training is really starting to pay off.

Our latest game was against a Clyde team who had not lost a game in any competition for 3 years. This was a very hard and physical game in which the Elgin youngsters matched Clyde in every department except for goals. Whilst the first period was tough, playing against a very strong wind, the second period was all Elgins. If we had scored all the shots we had on goal we would have been into double figures, Clyde barely managed to get out of their own half. The third period was a disaster for the lads. Aside from a very well taken goal by Connor Mcarthur, we lost our captain and centre half with what looks like a nasty injury. Andy was carried from the field and taken to hospital with what looks like ligament damage. This injury knocked the lads out of their stride and they lost composure. However we can take a tremendous amount of positives from this game. 

The important thing to remember is that at this level we are trying to develop the players and it is not the result that matters but the performance. Whilst we do not like to get beat every week our goal is to get the performance first and hopefully the results will follow. Playing on full size pitches for the first time for many and making the step up to SFL has been difficult but this group of players are making steady progress.