Scottish Lowland Football League
Saturday, April 13, 2024
Falkirk Stadium

EAST STIRLINGSHIRE… 6
(Murray 10, Honeyman 18, Rankin 37, 59, 71, 84)

CELTIC… 4
(Dobbie 8 & 15, Quinn 38, Bonnar 83)

Celtic FC B suffered their first defeat of 2024 on Saturday afternoon, losing out in a ten-goal thriller against East Stirlingshire.

With just three Lowland League matches left, Darren O’Dea and Stephen McManus’ side travelled to East Stirlingshire for their penultimate away match of the campaign.

And the young Hoops made the strong start to proceedings, opening the scoring on just eight minutes through Lewis Dobbie. Following last week’s double in the 2-0 win at Forthbank Stadium, the forward continued his fine form in front of goal.

Latching on to Mitchell Robertson’s inch-perfect cross into the box, Dobbie’s first touch allowed him space to slot the ball home under the goalkeeper.

However, despite that positive start, the home side quickly equalised. After failing to clear the initial cross into the box, the ball was smashed into the top corner of the net by Callum Murray.

The Celts quickly produced a response of their own to regain the lead as Dobbie fired in his second of the afternoon, tapping the ball into the back of the net from Bruno Davidson’s cross.

Once more, though, East Stirlingshire quickly got themselves back level in the game through Scott Honeyman.

Chasing a long ball over the top, the forward tried his luck with an effort from just outside the box, which Kai McLean couldn’t get enough of a hand on to stop.

After an extremely busy opening 20 minutes of the match, the excitement didn’t stop there in the first half as the home side managed to take the lead for the first time in the match, courtesy of Scott Rankin.

However, it was Celtic’s turn to produce a quick-fire response, scoring the sixth goal of an action-packed half of football.

Running on to a clever ball in behind, some unselfish play on the right by Davidson allowed Ben Quinn the simplest of tasks to tap the ball into the back of an empty net.

And Celtic almost took the lead within minutes of the restart, but Magnus Mackenzie was denied by a good save.

However, it was East Stirlingshire who scored the first goal of the half as Rankin fired his side back into the lead.

As they had done towards the end of the first half, the Bhoys aimed to respond and came within inches of grabbing another goal back as Dobbie hit the crossbar with an effort.

But it was the home side who would grab an important goal in the game, making it 5-3 with around 19 minutes left.

With just under 10 minutes remaining, Jude Bonnar did manage to pull another back for the Hoops, but East Stirlingshire sealed all three points with a quick-fire goal, to regain their two-goal advantage and leave the final score 6-4 to the home side.

The young Celtic side will look to bounce back from their impressive unbeaten run coming to a close as they return to the Excelsior Stadium for the final time this season when they take on Hearts next Friday evening.

CELTIC: McLean, Osagie (Donovan 77), Mackenzie, Robertson, Agbaire, Ure, Davidson (Jackson-Luyeye 68), Bonnar, Cummings (Turley 68), Dobbie, Quinn.
Subs: Morrison, Ferns, Hale

Celtic B team suffer rare defeat to East Stirlingshire after 10-goal thriller