LEITH ATHLETIC produced what must be their greatest game when beating Kennoway 3-1 in a fantastic quarter-final of the Soccer World Scottish Amateur Cup at Leith Links.
The Edinburgh team deserved to qualify for their first ever appearance in the semi-finals and, if they had taken three more good chances to score, they would have won by an even greater margin.
The last time Kennoway were beaten was in last seaso
n's Scottish Cup and the Fife outfit had not lost since then – in more than 40 games.
Their record was well and truly smashed by Athletic in the most emphatic style.
Leith survived the opening spell and then began to put Kennoway under pressure.
A shot from Steve Radzynski was stopped by visiting keeper Roger Warrender's foot. Next to test Warrender was Dale McCall, but his shot was well held by the Kennoway goalie.
Leith were caught out several times by very well rehearsed Kennoway offside tactics while the Fifers were also caught offside in their next attack on the Leith goal. When the ball was transferred back upfield, Radzynski sent over a perfectly-judged cross from the left for McCall to send a header wide with the goal open in front of him.
In a game of few clear-cut chances, this was a bad miss by the burly Leith striker. But the Leith No.10 made up for that by scoring the opening goal in the 30th minute.
McCall beat the Kennoway offside trap on the left side of the pitch and he raced in on Warrender to send a stunning 16-yard left-foot drive home.
Scott McAuley, back in the Leith starting line-up after a few weeks out of action, fired in another good shot that Warrender took two attempts to save.
Referee John Campbell continued to book players for comments and then Warrender was at full stretch to punch a superb effort from Radzynski away.
At the start of the second half, McCall had the ball in the Kennoway net, but the whistle had gone for offside – again!
It was Leith's turn to get the break of the ball when a tremendous free-kick was blocked by goalkeeper Iain Gordon but Kennoway failed to score from the rebound.
Radzynski laid on a pass for Chris Beaton to power his way through but his shot again lacked any power and Warrender had no problems saving.
At the other end, Jason Herkes headed wide from a good position, but
the Fifers were thrown a lifeline when they were awarded a penalty.
Stuart Curran kept his cool to send Gordon the wrong way for the equaliser.
The Leith fans roared encouragement to their team and as the noise level rose to a crescendo, the home side responded in the best way possible.
They attacked the Kennoway goal with renewed energy and Leith got back in front from an exceptional header by Radzynski over Warrender following a great Jamie Lauder free-kick in the 73rd minute.
At that stage, the sun had disappeared and a hail storm was in full flow, but the action on the pitch was tremendous.
Any chance of Kennoway saving the game disappeared when Radzynski forced a defender into making a mistake and the Leith No.9 displayed incredible coolness to control the ball before sending a low shot past the exposed Warrender to deliver what was a killer blow.
In another Leith move up the right, Steve Herd was cynically hacked down by Darren Davidson and the Kennoway player was lucky just to be shown a yellow card. By that time, however, the game was in the bag for Leith.
This present Leith squad have showed great improvement over the past few years and that is all down to the coaching skills of Stuart Churchill and Stuart Gray.
All their hard work paid off in this latest success for the club and it was no easy task to beat a team of the calibre of Kennoway.
Queen's Park beat Eastvale 3-1 in another quarter-final. Eddlewood have still to play Cupar Hearts in their quarter-final while St Pat's and St Joseph's are the other to teams in the last eight still to play.
Leith have a couple of weeks break from Scottish Cup duty before they go into unknown territory and, by that time, they will have Michael Stewart and Andy Penman back to boost their squad. These two players were away on a prearranged ski-ing holiday and they missed the fantastic win against Kennoway – and the aftermatch celebrations as well!
Leith Athletic: Iain Gordon, Gary Young, Dougie Thom, Chris Beaton, Stuart Hunter, Rory Stewart, Scott McAuley, Jamie Lauder, Steve Radzynski, Dale McCall, Andy Fraser, Marytn Wallace, David Connor, Steve Herd, Scott Mitchell, Matt Hutchison.
Kennoway: Roger Warrender, Stuart Halley, Keith Calder, Lee Bremner, Ian Brown, Darren Davidson, Colin Brown, Stuart Curran, John Shields, Craig Johnstone, Gary Ramsay, Jason Herkes, Sean Whittel, Michael Davis, Jamie Arnott, William Gillies.
Referee: John Campbell (Airdrie).
