Four Borders football clubs in East of Scotland Qualifying Cup second-round action next week

Gala Fairydean Rovers, the region’s only Scottish Lowland Football League representatives, are at home at Netherdale Stadium next Wednesday to Fife’s Inverkeithing Hillfield Swifts, relegated to East of Scotland Football League division two this summer after finishing at the foot of the table above last season.

That’s a second meeting in three seasons in the same competition for manager Martin Scott’s hosts as they were also drawn against the Dalgety Bay outfit the season before last, going out 3-2 at home in February last year in round five, with their visitors going on to win that April’s final in Newtongrange in Midlothian by 2-1 against East Lothian’s Dunbar United.

Lwendo Kazoka and Liam Watt scored for Rovers, with Luke Mahady at the double and Dylan Vannett on target for their lower-league opposition.

Swifts’ new EoSFL second division rivals Linton Hotspur and EoSFL division three’s Vale of Leithen and Hawick Royal Albert all play second-round ties next Tuesday.

Co-managers Ruaraidh Fleming and Paul Currie’s Hotspur are at home to Midlothian’s Newtongrange Star, newly promoted to the EoSFL’s premier division after finishing third in the league below, with kick-off at their New Moor Road ground in West Linton at 7.30pm.

Manager Kenny Aitchison’s Albert and opposite number Ian Flynn’s Vale are away to opposition from four and three tiers up respectively, both with 7.30pm kick-offs.

The Royalists go up against Tranent, fourth-place finishers in the Lowland League last season, in East Lothian and Vale face the EoSFL premier division’s Penicuik Athletic in Midlothian.

Vale were the Borders’ last men standing in the qualifying cup last time round, making it as far as round four.

They got the better of third division Livingston United by 2-1 at home in round two last August and saw off first division Kirkcaldy away by 6-3 in round three last November, going out 2-1 away to top-flight Dunbar in December.

Peebles Rovers and Hotspur both went out at the first hurdle away to West Lothian opposition, losing 4-2 at Armadale Thistle last August and 9-0 at Whitburn the month before respectively, as did Albert, beaten 3-2 away by Edinburgh’s Civil Service Strollers that August.

EoSFL division two’s Coldstream went out in round three, losing 2-0 at home to Fife’s Thornton Hibs last September after beating Northumberland’s Tweedmouth Rangers by the same scoreline away the month before.

Fairydean – ten-time winners of the cup, most recently in 1995 – were knocked out at the same stage of proceedings, losing 4-2 on penalties away to eventual winners Linlithgow Rose last November after finishing open play tied at 2-2.

That knockout followed a 3-1 second-round victory away to Edinburgh United three months prior.

Coldstream are also on the road in this year’s second round, either to second division rivals Edinburgh College or division three’s Newburgh Juniors, but no date has been fixed for that game yet as the Fifers’ first-round tie at home to the capital students isn’t due to be played until Saturday, August 16, with kick-off at 2.30pm.