Today I'm going back just 3 years to 14th July 2018 and another Scottish League Cup game, this time between Brechin City and Peterhead at Glebe Park.
Some clubs you warm to the moment you enter the ground. Brechin City is one such club, based in the town of Brechin in Angus. Brechin isn't actually a City at all even though it has a cathedral. Such small details don't worry the town's football club though. We received a very warm welcome from the club officials as soon as we entered and, noting our disappointment at the lack of a programme, they made sure that we were supplied with a team sheet (pictured). It would have been perhaps understandable if the officials had been a little more miserable. They would have been entitled to be given that the previous season, the club had been relegated back into the third tier after one season in the Scottish Championship. And not just relegated. They didn't win a league game at all and finished the season with a record of no wins, four draws and 32 defeats. They didn't pick up a single point away from home and became the first ever Scottish senior side to fail to win a league match all season.
The featured match came at the start of season 2018/19 and, surely, after such a debacle of a previous season, the only way was up? Brechin, for some reason, were installed as favourites for promotion and early season optimism abounded. But it was a false dawn and, come the end of the season, Brechin City again found themselves finishing bottom and were relegated this time into Scottish League Two, the fourth tier of the SPFL. Following back-to-back relegations they were saved in 2019/20 by Covid19 with an early curtailment to the season but, come season 2020/21 their wretched run continued with yet another relegation, this one taking them out of the Scottish national league system after 67 years of continuous membership. Today Brechin are to be found in the Highland League.
Such a terrible run of fortune was such a shame for this wonderful little club. It's definitely going some to have a run of seasons that eclipses York City's recent seasons of crapness but I think that Brechin take the biscuit with three relegations and a Covid escape in four seasons! Besides sheer ineptitude on the park, the other thing about Brechin City worthy of note is the park itself. Glebe Park is a gem of a ground and is notable for it's glorious hedges which form part of the boundary to the ground. It was believed to be the only senior European football ground with a herbaceous perimeter but loss of senior status almost certainly means loss of this particular claim to fame. The hedge is magnificent though and legend has it that William Wallace hid behind the hedge to escape the English! Well we certainly didn't see him that day so perhaps he's still in there somewhere?
The game finished 0-0 resulting in another Scottish League Cup Group Stage penalty shootout which Jim McInally's Peterhead won 5-4. I don't have any match footage for you today in my blog but I have attached a wonderful little video about "the Glebe". It's definitely worth a watch. And will there be a promotion for Brechin City back into the SPFL this season? Well I'd hedge my bets if I were you...
CRB Match No. 2234
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