4-3 defeat in capital stretches winless streak to four fixtures for Gala Fairydean Rovers
Saturday’s away-day at Civil Service Strollers proved to be anything but a walk in the park for Gala Fairydean Rovers as they were edged out 4-3 by the Edinburgh outfit, extending their current winless streak to four fixtures.
Since their last Scottish Lowland Football League East victory away to Dunipace in mid-October, by 5-1, interim manager Steven Noble’s Borderers have drawn 1-1 at home to Berwick Rangers and lost their three matches afterwards, by 4-0 against Broxburn Athletic and 4-3 versus Brechin City, both at home, prior to the weekend’s outing to the capital’s Christie Gillies Park.
That leaves them 13th in the table, on seven points from 13 fixtures, ahead of a trip to seventh-placed Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic next Tuesday, with kick-off in Midlothian at 7.45pm.
Rovers’ scorers as they fought back from going in at half-time 2-0 down were Noah Simpson on 55 minutes, Daniel Strickland on 84 and Jared Lyons on 88.
Netting beyond visiting No 1 Reece Murray at the other end of the pitch were Marc Laird on 28 minutes from the penalty spot, Jacob Glass on 37, Callen Robb on 57 and former Hawick Royal Albert and Selkirk striker Alieu Faye on 82.
Captained by Danny Galbraith, Fairydean’s other starters were Liam Fagan, Greg Macpherson, McKenzye Campbell, Daniel Martins, Che Reilly, Tylar Denholm and Lewis Hall, with James Clare, Lennon Connolly, Keaghan Jacobs, Arnault Kasa, Ross Lamb and Joe Wylie joining Strickland on the bench.
Saturday’s tenth loss of the season extended the Galashiels club’s ongoing winless streak against Strollers to seven fixtures.
Their last victory versus the capital city side was back in November 2022, by 2-1 at home, and since then they’ve drawn with them once, by 2-2 at home in December 2024, and lost their other five meetings – by 2-1 in November 2023 and 2-0 in October 2025 at home and 7-0 in January 2024, 4-2 nine months later and 2-1 in March this year away.
Fairydean head to Bonnyrigg next week bidding for back-to-back wins against their hosts after knocking them out of round three of this season’s East of Scotland Qualifying Cup 2-0 at their Netherdale Stadium home ground in October thanks to goals from Denholm and Simpson.
Ending a four-match losing streak, that was their first win against Rose since one by 5-1 at home in round four of the same competition in February 2022, having lost all three of their league meetings since – by 2-1 in September and 3-0 in July last year on home turf, sandwiching a 4-2 defeat on the road in February – as well as a home third-round qualifying cup tie by 3-0 in November 2025.
Next week’s Bonnyrigg trip is followed by a Scottish Lowland Football League Cup first-round tie away to Kilwinning Rangers in North Ayrshire on Saturday, November 21, with kick-off at 3pm.
That will be Fairydean’s first game ever against Kilwinning, currently four points clear at the top of the Scottish Lowland Football League West table on 33 points from 13 fixtures.