East of Scotland League
Conference A
Sunday 31st March 2019
Kick Off 12.30 Actual 12.32
Peebles Rovers 1 Newtongrange Star 3, attendance 288
13’ 0-1
41’ 0-2
72’ 1-2
79’ 1-3
@ Whitestone Park
Innerleithen Road
Peebles
EH45 8BA
£5 Admission
Programme available, but I won’t buy one at any event organised by Groundhop UK.
At last, we finally got round to the ground that made the trip worthwhile. Whitestone Park hosted Scottish Football League matches from 1923 until 1926 when Peebles Rovers had their brief stint as a member of the Scottish League and it also recorded its record attendance around that time, where according to reports, there have twice been crowds of 1,500 for Scottish F.A. Cup matches there. It is a far cry from the 50 or so that watch them these days and even with the Groundhop UK fanfare in town, they still drew less than 300 and that figure will include a number who chose to enter the park by a different entrance in order to avoid the fiver admission price!
Peebles are 10th (4th bottom) in the league table and never looked liked beating fourth placed Newtongrange. The pitch didn’t help, being more suited to rugby union, which is probably the main sport here in the Scottish Borders, rather than football. Star never looked like losing it once they were 0-2 up and they still looked in control when Peebles pulled a goal back, but the two goal lead was soon restored.
At least with this being the final game of this years Scottish Groundhop, it meant we were already heading in the right direction for home, although the road back to the motorway is quite slow, but we did have a relatively trouble free journey. With a first drop off in Uxbridge, then on to Slough, where I collected my car, it was back via Staines to drop off the last member of our party, before I arrived home at 22.45…… By not buying the programmes, which were nearly all rubbish by all accounts, and paying for matches on the day, which is always cheaper than an advanced ticket, it meant the trip (split 4 ways for fuel and hotel) cost me £140 less than if I had travelled on the official coach from London……….
