Lochgelly Albert (Scotland)

Lochgelly Albert JFC is a Scottish Junior/non-league football club formed in 1926 as an amateur club who represent the former mining town of Lochgelly in Fife playing their games at Gardiners Park.

It is thought that the name ‘Albert’ may have been adopted as it is the name of a French town near the 1916 Somme battlefields, where a few young men from Lochgelly perished during the battle.

Albert offered a replacement for Scottish League side Lochgelly United who disbanded during the War years before finally folding for good in 1928 having been league members between 1915 and 1926 from their Recreation Park home.

Lochgelly played their first match in the Junior ranks in July 1933 away to Kirkford Juniors; with success soon following, as Albert became Fife Junior League champions in 1937-38. By then another club, Lochgelly Violet had joined the Junior set up in 1935.

The first derby between the clubs attracted a crowd of 2,000 to Gardiners Park. Violet had a youngster in their ranks called Billy Liddell, who would move onto Liverpool to become one of their greatest ever players.

A second Fife League title followed in 1946-47 before a record Gardiners Park crowd of 11, 645 attended the Scottish Junior Cup sixth round clash against Bo'ness United. The Fife League championship flag was regained in 1948-49.

Further league titles were achieved in 1954-55 and then 1973-74. Albert remained in the Fife Junior League until all clubs from the area joined the East Region of the Junior set up for the 2002-03 campaign.

Restructuring of the leagues followed in 2006-07, with Albert being placed in the East Region Central Division; weighing in with a fourth place finish. By 2013-14 the club was playing its football in the East Region South Division.

Albert finished in fourth place in 2016-17 before being placed in the East Premier League South for 2018-19 after further Junior restructuring under manager Barry Cockburn. A bottom place return saw the appointment of Brian Farmer as the new manager.

Lochgelly Albert FC will play in the SJFA East Premier League South in the 2019-20 season.

My visit

Lochgelly Albert 3 Stoneyburn 2 (Saturday 25^th January 2020) SJFA East Region Premier League South (Att: c50)

There are two things I like about the Junior set up in Scotland. They don’t have ridiculously large league’s and spread their fixtures out so that there’s often games to be seen in late May and sometimes cup competitions in June.

The second is they don’t force clubs to spend money they don’t have on unnecessary ground facilities; even though most venues have some covered enclosure, pie hut, toilets and some with a bar.

That’s all that’s required for the numbers attracted to games. Too many non-league clubs south of the border have been saddled by inconsistent grading committees with costs to build facilities that are never used; endangering the longevity of the said clubs.

With a lack of floodlights, the Juniors either play earlier on a Saturday afternoon in the winter months or just after tea midweek when the light allows. Lochgelly’s 1.45 kick-off gave me an opportunity to at least see half a game before I headed off to a SPFL game at 3pm.

Yes, it could be argued that the ‘Juniors’ were falling behind those clubs who’d defected to join the Scottish FA league’s and become affiliated to that association, especially financially, but I still had a liking for the organisation and its clubs.

My couple of days using the bus services of Fife had gone well. I’d visited numerous of the Kingdom’s football clubs to take photos. Already my Saturday had been occupied with calls to Kelty Hearts, Crossgates Primrose, Hill of Beath Hawthorn, Dundonald Bluebell and Lochore Welfare.

An added bonus of coming across the disused ground of former club Ballingry Rovers on way back to Lochgelly from Lochore, was the icing on the cake. I still had time for a pint before my first game of the day.

Walking up High Street from the town centre I was aware of Torleys Bar on the left. My aide Prorege from the excellent Non-League Matters forum had told me that it was a reasonable pub with a little bit of added info.

I was told that Lochgelly had the cheapest property prices in Scotland and that the school has the worst exam results in Scotland, but it didn’t make it a bad place. That was good with me. I like earthy places, providing the people are friendly.

The Old Ship, up the hill was just a couple of minutes walk away from Gardiner’s Park. I used to ask my Dad what pubs were like when he first started going out? I imagine he’d have said something like this one.

The long narrow bar against the street took me back to a wee un, to use local vernacular. The landlord was a friendly chap who asked if I was there for the match? I don’t suppose Lochgelly saw many tourists?

He said he was a former director at Raith Rovers. A fella at the bar was a Dunfermline fan, so we had a quick chat about their match the previous night which I’d been to. They both shook their heads and laughed when I told them I’d be doing the first half at Albert before heading off to Cowdenbeath v Brechin City.

After my pint of Belhaven Best, it was up and around the corner into South Street where a gap led to the ground entrance. Admission was a fiver with no programmes available. It was time to find some food.

Café Albert, a nudge towards the French connection of the club name was only serving hot drinks. The pies would be another ten minutes. I’d left my Scarborough Athletic hat on an earlier bus, so I purchased a Lochgelly Albert beanie to keep my melon warm for £7.

It was a wise purchase. Gardiner’s Park was atop a hill with some grand views from on top of the steep grass banking which enclosed the pitch on three sides; with the Mossmorran Gas Plant raising my curiosity in the distance.

The ground graders down south would have kittens seeing people stood on grass banking without hard standing right around the pitch, but I loved it. They offered some great photos opportunities. A decent sized covered standing enclosure offered shelter.

The wind was blowing down the pitch with a bit of light drizzle in the air as the teams ran out to kick off bang on time. I seized my opportunity to grab a Scotch pie and excellent lentil soup for a great bargain of £2.70.

Unfortunately, I heard a bit of a cheer and laughter while I was at the counter. I poked my head of the door to find out that Albert had gone 1-0 up through a speculative long range effort from Stephen Stark in less than a minute.

There was a slight surprise in store for me when I saw the two linesmen. They were an official from both sides without any kit. VAR was on another planet. The club official simply flagged when the ball went out with the ref deciding offside's.

Stoneyburn had gone into the game in second spot in the table against their mid-table hosts, but it was Lochgelly with the wind at their backs making all the running with skipper and left back Michael Perrie driving his side forward.

Albert were playing plenty of clever football with Sami Mitchell and Jack Cowan making plenty of good movement to stretch ‘The Fulshie’ defence. I was delighted to see the number 11 listed as ‘Trialist’ on the club Facebook page.

Shots were being fired towards the visitor’s net, with your truly doing a bit of work as impromptu ball boy collecting wayward efforts while taking my photos. I was back under the cover when the lead was doubled through Mitchell with help from some slack defending.

The Stoneyburn fans and officials on the far side bank were cheered after a header from a corner was parried by home goalie Shaun Hunter with Ryan Robertson slamming in the rebound from close range.

There were several instances where I expected the defences to scream “offside” towards the referee, but they simply got on with the game and letting the man in black get on with his job. Indeed, the only grumble I heard was in the direction of the Albert flagman when he signalled a ball had gone narrowly out of play.

Albert’s man of the match, Pat Armour restored the two goal advantage six minutes before the interval in another move that I thought looked very tight for offside. Again, there was no complaints. Perhaps I struck lucky? I know I enjoyed every minute.

As the ref blew for the interval it was time for me to head away. I’d had a good time in an organisation that once again offered me entertainment and value for money. I later learned that Stoneyburn made it 3-2 with around a minute left of normal time. Local reports said that the Albert were well worth the win.

I headed back down the hill via Well Road and Dundas Street to Main Street from where the 33 bus towards Dunfermline dropped me off in time to be inside Central Park for the afternoon’s main course before the teams came out.

Hopefully, I’d get to more SJFA matches in the future.