League football again continued and Whitedale welcomed a very youthful Celtic team to Strom Park on a lovely summer’s night. Both teams were missing key players in the encounter so a close game was predicted.
It was the town team who started the better and after only 1 minute of the game played they went 1-0 up. Jack Clubb received the ball in defence and sent a defence splitting 50 yard pass to team mate Kennedy Moar who showed great composure to round the onrushing Adrian Morrison in goal to slot home.
Whitedale could have equalised 10 minutes later when a cut back found Bobby Scott in space but his shot was straight at Kieran Glaser in the Celtic goal. At the other end, Moar had a similar chance to double Celtic’s lead but after rounding Morrison again, his shot was cleared off the line by a Whitedale defender.
The remainder of the half was very scrappy with very few chances and Saunders blew to give the players a well-deserved rest.
Whitedale came out of the traps in the second half pushing for the equaliser and were rewarded after 10 minutes. Good link up play from Piotr Drozdowski and Greg Tulloch allowed Ali Scott to pick the ball up at the edge of the box and unleash a pile driver into the top corner.
With their tails up Whitedale went in search for their second and were unlucky not to be rewarded. A cross field ball by Charlie Unsworth found the feet of Sean Walterson who drove past his defender and whipped in a ball to be met by Tulloch but his shot from close range somehow cannoning back off the post and away to safety.
After an onslaught on the Celtic back line Whitedale seemed to run out of steam mid-way through the half and Celtic began creating more chances and themselves going in search of the winner.
5 minutes from time it was the town team who broke the deadlock, Tom Moncrief bombed down the left flank and delivered a ball into the box which couldn’t be dealt with and a failed clearance fell to James Aitken who caught it on the half volley with a quite incredible acrobatic shot which found its way past Morrison in goal. On a night which Whitedale will want to forget it was Celtic’s youth that stole the show. Best on the night for Celtic was Aitken and young Matthew Murray and for Whitedale, Ali Scott was the stand out.
CELTIC TEAM: K Glaser, J Simpson, J Clubb, J Bradley, T Moncrieff, M Murray, E Smith (B Buggy) (A Graham), J Aitken, B Johnson, S Sim, K Moar