Published: Thursday, 5th June, 2008 11:15am

Six of the worst leave Aberdour's promotion dreams in tatters

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Kyles Athletic Shinty Club 6 Aberdour Shinty Club 1

ABERDOUR Shinty Club"s remaining hopes of promotion from South Division 2 evaporated under the scorching Tighnabruaich sun on Saturday when the Fife team were defeated 6-1 by Kyles Athletic.

Despite travelling with a strong team, albeit lacking in substitutes, Aberdour made the worst possible start in this key fixture, finding themselves two goals down after five minutes. Two fairly innocuous shots took awkward bounces and slipped past keeper Fred Mathisen.

Doug Newsom pulled one back after 20 minutes when the hard surface similarly deceived Kyles" keeper Fraser MacDonald.

For the rest of the half, Kyles" excellent defence shepherded Aberdour"s forwards out of the danger areas and the visitors were reduced to shooting from long range or narrow angles.

Kyles made it 3-1 with a simple tap-in following a saved shot and increased their lead to 4-1 at half-time with the best goal of the game, an unstoppable 20-yard effort.

Almost immediately after the interval Aberdour were hit with another blow when they were reduced to 11 players after half back Ross Nicol suffered a calf injury.

To their credit, the Fife team coped with this disadvantage quite well, Newsom dropping deeper and Kevin McKell adding wing forward duties to his usual wing centre role.

The pace of the game slackened in the heat but Kyles Athletic pressed forward at every opportunity as Aberdour struggled to maintain possession in the final third of the pitch.

Kyles veteran Tom Whyte added a fifth goal with a crisp shot after some excellent build-up work down the right wing and sub Callum MacArthur added the sixth on 75 minutes.

On a difficult day for Aberdour, defenders John MacLachlan, Lisa Norman and Fraser Mathisen ensured the score was kept down to a respectable level, while Kevin McKell kept up a high work rate and showed some skilful touches on the right wing.

Youngster Angus Thorburn – still eligible for the under-14 side – showed he was capable of troubling the Kyles defence and was unlucky not to get on the score sheet.

On Saturday Aberdour travel to Argyll again, to take on Col Glen in the first round of the Bullough Cup.