Wick Academy 3 Brora Rangers 0

30th December 2012

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WELL, justice has been done -

Reporter Noel Donaldson - 29 December 2012
Wick Academy, having had to suffer the ignominy of losing out to a manager who sneaked off over the Ord, to another job and added insult to injury by signing for derby rivals, Brora Rangers, responded in the most effective way – on the field of football.

Their 3-O defeat of the Sutherland side, the second time this season and by the same margin, sent out a clear message to Davie Kirkwood, making his debut, yesterday, in the dugout at Harmsworth Park, for the first time since the controversy – “We are doing fine without you...in fact we’re doing better without you.”

Wick Academy 3 Brora Rangers 0

First things first. There was a minute's silence for local lad Jamie Gunn, who died suddenly at his home in Rutherglen, near Glasgow, two days before Christmas.

Even before the kick-off, the small segregated Sutherland support in the south stand, was making its voice heard, a fence away from the massive Academy faithful. The Brora support sang the praises of their new manager with a parody of Walking in a Winter Wonderland, and a denunciation of Wick’s boss, Barry Wilson, which I thought crossed the line of decency.
The Scorrie support didn’t rise to the taunts and adopted a wait-and- see policy. They didn’t have too long to wait...

In the 35th minute lofty Lukasz Geruzel who had been causing the Brora defence problems from the word go, was sent on his way by Richard Macadie and no-one was going to stop him as he powered through to slot the ball past keeper Alex Ridgers to send the Scorries in ahead, at the break.

Where now the Cattach choir? It was the turn of the Academy choral and they were on song with the rhetorical question ---“Can you hear the Brora sing?” You couldn’t.

In the 74minute Wick won a penalty and who better to take than the big man himself who sent the keeper the wrong way to make it 2-0. He was deputising for Gary Weir, currently Down Under but if he was staking a claim to a striking role, then he was certainly doing it in style.
Brora were certainly no pushovers, though, and the scoreline might have been more competitive had some of efforts on goal, borne fruit.

Academy added insult to injury with Geruzel laying it on, for Sam Mackay who netted from close in, to make his team’s victory emphatic.

Now, what was that Kirkwood wrote in the match programme for the abandoned Dudgeon Park derby leg, about having better players than Academy...?