Threave Rovers may be on their travels in the Scottish Cup tomorrow night but they’ll still be on familiar ground.
The Castle Douglas side head to Ochilview to face Syngenta in the preliminary round of the country’s top cup competition.
Although it’s new opposition for Threave, it’s not a new ground as they’ve played there in the past against East Stirlingshire.
And they’ve also made the trip there in the Scottish Cup before, having drawn 2-2 with Stenhousemuir in 2010 when manager Vinnie Parker was in goal. He said: “I’ve played there three or four times. We always seemed to get Stenhousemuir in the cup and I played there and also when we beat them.
“It’s a ground I’m very familiar with as we played there in the Lowland League when East Stirlingshire played there. It’s a big 4G pitch and we’re young and fit so it could work in our favour.
“We’ve done our homework on them and had them watched but we need to worry about ourselves. We know it’s a tough tie. They’ve got a good reputation and some very good players. We’re going there to try our very, very best.”
Threave have won all of their games in the West of Scotland League so far this season and continued their 100 per cent record with a 5-0 win over Mid Annandale in the SFA South Region Challenge Cup on Saturday.
Phil Middlemiss gave Threave the lead in spectacular style after a quarter of an hour but it wasn’t until the second half that the goals really began to flow.
Lewis Todd teed up Lewis Brotherston to double the lead before Todd got himself on the scoresheet moments later.
Late on, Brotherston headed in the fourth before Tam Coles wrapped things up with a fine individual effort.
Parker said: “We were in control. In the first half we created chance after chance but there was good goalkeeping and we maybe weren’t as clinical as usual which kept the scoreline down a bit.
“We knew they’d start to tire and when you can make substitutions to attack tired legs and find that bit of space it makes a difference.
“We said at half-time the next goal was important as if Mids scored it would give them energy but in the end it was pretty comfortable.
“The bench we had was an absolute manager’s dream. We could bring Ryan Coates on to run at tired legs, Tam Coles stretched the game and Stuart Douglas dominated the midfield.
“It’s bigger than the 11 players on the pitch, it’s the whole 18 right through to the committee and the bus driver. It’s a good place to be.”
