WEATHER COLD...ACADEMY HOT! Wick Academy: 8 Ft William: 1

8th November 2010

Report By Noel Donaldson

WICK Academy banished their Scottish Cup blues and demonstrated the sort of soccer that would have seen them cruise into the next round.

It was back home at Harmsworth Park on Saturday and Highland League business and, the fans that braved the wintry temperature were treated to a feast of football that produced a heart-warming barrowload of eight goals. Okay, so Fort William is not "in the same league" as Buckie Thistle, Turrifff, or Locos but I reckon the table leaders would have had their work cut out to keep the high-flying scorries at bay.

Time and again, Academy opened up their opposition like a tin of sardines and it must have been doubling embarrassing for a team with a defence playing for a club with Fort in its name. The only players feeling fort-ified were those in black and white. As the game progressed, Academy looked as if they could score at will....and they did!

The dye appeared to be cast in the first quarter-of-an hour when David Allan hit a superb cross for the home team's opener. Before the Fort could recover, Gary Manson made it 2-0, a minute later, and the black-and-whites earned the supporters' cry that they're 'dynamite', by adding numbers three and four, before the break, courtesy of Stevie Cunningham and Shane Sutherland, a special, his first since signing for the club.

The second period was pretty much a continuation of the first, with Fort William wishing, no doubt, that legislation didn't exist, whereby teams losing four goals in the first half, are deemed to have lost the game.
Another dose of goals, from Messrs Sutherland, McAdie, Sam Mackay and Gary Weir ended the visitors' nightmare and consigned them to that miserable homeward journey over the Ord, which, I imagine, always appears an even more tortuous route, on the back of a thrashing, McLellan's late goal being little consolation.

If confidence is bred by such an outstanding performance, then, Academy's hot-and-cold inconsistency must surely be coming to an end.