Fort William F.C. (Official)

Brilliant result 👏

Following the weekends win over Bunilidh Thistle, we will face Inverness Athletic in the Quarter Finals of the Jock MacKay Cup.

The tie will take place at the Hub in Inverness on September 19th in a 1pm kickoff.

A few words from Fort Manager, Kyle Redpath 👇

“I’ll start by addressing a couple of the negative and quite frankly ill informed comments on social media regarding our squad availability. We travelled through to Lossiemouth which is a 2 hour 30 min drive each way on a Wednesday night, a trip any club at our level would severely struggle with. Not everyone in our squad has the luxury of being able to take time off work whenever we have a midweek away game. We had 3 outfield subs, none of which had ever played for the first team before and 3 starters who were making their first starts of the season. I was extremely disappointed to read the suggestion that some players simply could not be bothered to travel.

Our injury list at the moment is extensive. We currently have Martin Munro, Club Captain Andy McLean, Liam Martin, Liam Grant, Andrew Skinner, Iain Boyle, Kadyn Campbell, Adam Morris and Cameron Macleod currently injured. Cameron actually played last night despite being injured. John Treasurer is now added to the list after picking up an injury in the game last night. The vast majority of these players have been regular starters for the club last season and/or this season and I’d challenge any team to be missing that many key players and still be able to field a team at all, let alone compete for large spells with a team sitting near the top of the Highland League.

I also read that we should have only local players playing but without the commitment of the players coming from Skye, Mallaig, Aviemore, Inverness etc, alongside the commitment our local players show, then we'd struggle to have a club, simple as that.

I’d suggest that those with any negative comments around our squad availability turn their attention to supporting the club and come to games to support the players rather than criticising players’ supposed 'lack of commitment' online. It doesn’t do anyone any favours and simply isn’t fair on anyone associated with the club.

On the game itself, I thought we competed well for the majority, again, against a team doing so well in the Highland League, who had a full bench to choose from. We were under no illusions it was going to be a difficult game but our mentality throughout was excellent, we defended well and created a few chances.

Lossiemouth fully deserved their victory and we wish them all the best in the next round of the cup.

We have no game this weekend and it’ll hopefully provide some much needed recovery time and we can see a few of the injured players return next week as we make the long trip to Thurso.”

🧡🖤

Full Time

Lossiemouth 4-1 Fort William

Not the result we wanted on the road but plenty of positives to be taken.

All the best to Lossiemouth FC for the next round and the rest of the season.

Half Time

Lossiemouth 2-1 Fort William

Fort Scorer: Jack Stephen

Fort William Starting Lineup to face Lossiemouth:

Kit Fletcher (GK)
Ty Cobb
John Treasurer
Michael Rodgers
Alfie Duncan
Dave Forbes
Cameron MacLeod
Jack Stephen
Robbie Rydings
Lewis Luxton
Liam Taylor

Substitutes:

Ryan Hunter (GK)
Jordan Ross
Harvey Service
Marc Forbes

It's Matchday for our First-Team as they make the journey to Grant Park to face Highland League side Lossiemouth in the First Round of the North of Scotland Cup.

It's a good opportunity for the young squad making the journey up to test themselves against strong opposition with the hosts currently sitting in the Top 6 of the Highland League after a strong start to the season for the Coasters.

Kickoff is at 8pm in Moray.

🧡🖤

The gaffer on Saturday's Cup Victory 👇

"I thought we started the game well in the first 20-25 minutes and then completely took our foot off the gas after we went 2-0 up which is unacceptable.

Whilst I appreciate our injury list is getting bigger every game and we were missing several key players from the squad today, we still should have more about us to put in a better performance for 90 minutes. It’s all fine and well playing good football for 20/25 minute spells but we need to find the consistency where we are performing better for all of the game and at the very least the majority of it.

The most important thing is winning the game and being in the next round of the cup which we’ve done but our performance levels were miles off what we are capable of.

Our focus now turns to Wednesday nights game against Lossiemouth in the North of Scotland Cup and we’re under absolutely no illusions about how hard a game it’ll be. Lossiemouth have started their Highland League in brilliant form with 4 wins and 2 draws from their 8 games so will definitely be a huge challenge but one I’m hopeful the boys will relish as it’s an opportunity to go and test themselves at a higher level”

Full Time

Fort William 3-2 Bunillidh Thistle

Scorers:
Aaron MacLellan
Liam Martin
Lachie Shaw