Haddington Athletic visit Newtown Park on Saturday in a game where both teams want the win although from a different perspective. Bo’ness have maximum points from their games played so far and have no desire to falter at this stage. Meanwhile Haddington have been less consistent illustrated with a win at Lothian Thistle on Saturday only to go down at Sauchie in their midweek fixture. They are keen not to find themselves cut off from the top half of the League at this early stage of the campaign.

The East Lothian side know they can win at Bo’ness just as they did almost two years ago, knocking the BUs out of the East of Scotland Cup. Marty Wright equalised for Bo’ness after an early Calum Scott own goal but a Scott Moffat brace had the visitors well ahead at half time. Ross Campbell and Michael Gemmell pulled goals back after the break but it proved too little too late for the BUs. Haddington also defeated Bo’ness in the same competition at Millfield Park in 2011 Yusif Bernawi and Derek Slight on target for the home side sandwiching John Stewart’s strike for Bo’ness. The teams last met in the League at Bo’ness in 2001, an Alan Ward double with goals each from Alan Aitken and Dale Ryan countering Haddington’s two goals on the day.

Back to the present and Bo’ness enjoyed their visit to Burntisland last weekend where Brian Morgan, Ali El-Zubaidi and Kieran Sweeney scored the goals to give the BUs all the points. Burntisland enjoyed good spells creating chances that could have inflicted some pain but thankfully for Bo’ness they are not the only team to waste opportunities. Over the piece though Bo’ness were the better team and fully merited the win. Both Stuart Hunter and Ross Campbell were unavailable for that game and combined with the current injury list it may not have been BU manager Steven Kerrigan’s first choice line up. In saying that those picked to play did very well and Ali El-Zubaidi and Kieran Sweeney both scored their first goals for the club. Andy Shirra also made his first appearance of the season after a long lay off due to injury. Unfortunately, Joshua Watt limped off after only twenty minutes and hopefully his injury is not serious.

This will be the BUs first home game in four weeks and it will be another four before they are back at Newtown. A decent turnout from the BU Faithful is expected and there is plenty of room at Newtown Park for more. A big crowd can spur on the players and have the treasurer happy to spend the extra time to count both gate and raffle money to supplement the coffers over the coming weeks

John Spowart