Gala Fairydean Rovers set for lowest Scottish Lowland Football League finish yet of 16th

Gospel Ocholi on the ball during Gala Fairydean Rovers' 3-0 loss at home at Netherdale on Saturday to Caledonian Braves in the Scottish Lowland Football League (Photo: Alwyn Johnston)

Though 23 points better off than the two teams beneath them, basement side Edinburgh University and second-from-bottom Gretna 2008, Rovers are now three points behind 15th-placed Broomhill with only one game left to play and a goal difference 36 inferior.

The Borderers are third from bottom of the table, on 32 points from 33 fixtures, and that’s where they’ll stay, Broomhill being on 35 from 32.

The 16th-placed finish in prospect for the Galashiels side – the region’s last men standing in the league following Selkirk’s demise and Hawick Royal Albert’s demotion in 2018 and Vale of Leithen’s relegation in 2022 – is three spots below their joint-lowest points of 13th out of 16 teams in 2018 and out of 18, like now, in 2022 and ten shy of their highest placing of sixth out of 17 in 2021.

Their other fifth-tier finishes since their formation in 2013 were tenth the year after, eighth in 2015, 11th in 2016, tenth in 2017, eighth in 2019, 11th in 2020 and 12th last year.

Player-manager Martin Scott will oversee his last game of the current campaign away to fourth-placed Cumbernauld Colts this coming Saturday, with kick-off at 3pm, and his team will be hoping to make amends for a 4-1 defeat in the reverse fixture at Netherdale Stadium in October.

Braves’ goal-scorers against Gala at the weekend were Kristian Gkegka on 22 minutes, Ross McNeil on 65 and Cameron Breadner on 89.