Hawick Royal Albert still hoping for happy ending to football season

That 4-1 loss at home at Albert Park to Easthouses Lily Miners’ Welfare leaves them bottom of the table with five points from 19 fixtures and still awaiting their first win of the season.

There are still three months left to go until end of term away to Craigroyston on Saturday, May 27, however, and with the Royalists having two games in hand on the three teams immediately above them, all hope is not yet lost, according to Aitchison.

Third-placed Syngenta’s current troubles could also come to their rescue as if, as looks likely, the Grangemouth side are unable to fulfil their fixture card for the remainder of the season and end up folding, the number of teams facing relegation to the EoSFL’s third division might well be cut from four to three.

Even as things stand, though, Aitchison believes the 11-point gap to fifth-bottom Craigroyston is one his side are more than capable of bridging.

“We are still 11 points off safety, but how we want the story of this season to end is up to us, and if we were to choose the most exciting ending, it’d be what we’re currently doing – looking at not getting a win until March – and then getting a few surprise results.

“That would be the Hollywood ending to the season.

“The league’s not over yet. The thing is that we’ve been playing teams in mid-table over recent weeks. We’ve not played anybody in the bottom five for quite some time now, so if we can win those games and get a few points against teams higher up, we’ll stay up. It’s all to play for.

“It’s a tough challenge but it’s nothing I wasn’t aware of coming into this season.”

Darren Milne was on target for Albert, reduced to ten men by Owen Renton’s 70th-minute red card for a tackle from behind, on Saturday, with Lee Smith, Michael Hunter, Jai Whyte and Shaun Hill scoring for the visitors.

Looking back over that game, Aitchison said: “We just made silly mistakes. We made quite a few in quick succession and conceded poor goals.

“It took us until half-time just to calm ourselves down and get a foothold in the game but it was a bit too late by then.”

Next up is a trip to second-placed St Andrews United this coming Saturday, with kick-off at 2.30pm.

Though they’re at opposite ends of the table, the Fifers being 16 league places and 44 points better off than Albert, there was only a single goal in it the last time the sides met, the visitors winning 1-0 in Hawick at the end of January, and Aitchison is confident his team can give them a game again.

“On paper, we’ve got no chance, but we competed with them very well here,” he said.

“I’m sure that’ll be a warning to them not to be complacent, though, so it could go against us and we’ll need to rise to that challenge.

“We have more players available this week so hopefully we can pose a challenge for them and try to get something from the game.”