Final countdown under way for Gala Fairydean Rovers after knocking League 1 opponents Kelty Hearts out of cup

The Galashiels side’s 3-1 East of Scotland Qualifying Cup final defeat by Linlithgow Rose in May earned them a semi-final spot in this season’s East of Scotland Cup and they took advantage of that opportunity on Saturday by knocking out League 1’s Kelty Hearts to book a place in a final to be played on a date yet to be fixed.

Their opposition will either be East of Scotland Football League premier division table-toppers Linlithgow Rose again or FC Edinburgh, currently third in League 1. Rose and the capital side play their semi-final on Wednesday, February 8, to determine which of them will take on Rovers in the final.

That will only be the Borderers’ second cup final since their creation in 2013 by reuniting Gala Fairydean and Gala Rovers, the former’s last one having been back in 2002 and the latter’s at the double in 2013, winning both.

A 34th-minute Quinn Mitchell volley booked that place for the Scottish Lowland Football League team at the expense of their League 1 hosts in Fife at the weekend – making it back-to-back wins for Rovers for the first time since early November following a 4-2 league win versus Celtic B seven days earlier – and their performance on the day merited that progress, according to player-manager Martin Scott.

“We thoroughly deserved the victory, I thought,” he said.

“We’ve carried on the momentum from the Celtic B game. We played with the same team.

“We knew it was going to be a difficult match in terms of intensity and physicality, and obviously they’ve got good quality, but, to a man, I felt we implemented our game-plan very well.

“It was very pleasing to see the guys perform to a very high standard again.

“I think it’s been a work in progress since I’ve come in.

“Myself and Stevie are doing a lot of work with the guys in terms of improving mentality and breeding confidence, and I think now you can see that they believe they’re actually capable of competing with the best in the league.

“I’m not saying that we’ll go the whole season and we’ll not lose a game or draw a game or put in a bad performance. Our main objective has been focusing on getting positive performances because we believe that if you get the right performance, more often than not you’ll get the right result.”

Scott’s starting XI included forward Gospel Ocholi and goalkeeper Ruairidh Adams, on loan from Partick Thistle and Dundee United respectively, and the former went close to doubling Gala’s advantage with a curling shot just short of the hour mark, though Alfredo Agyeman spurned a close-range chance to equalise for Kelty soon afterwards.

Next up for Rovers is a league match at home to Cumbernauld Colts this coming Saturday, with kick-off at Netherdale at 3pm.

They go into that game looking to do the double against their visitors, having beaten them 4-2 in the reverse fixture in North Lanarkshire in November.

Rovers are currently 11th in the table, on 36 points from 25 matches, two league places and seven points better off than their visitors, though Cumbernauld have a game in hand on them.