Vale of Leithen 0
Heriot-Watt University 3
EoS QUALIFYING LEAGUES
DAVE RYCE reports from Victoria Park
IT couldn’t help but be noted during the afternoon that a member of the visiting squad bore a quite uncanny resemblance to pop singer Harry Styles of One Direction.
A few words with one of his teammates confirmed that he gets that everywhere he goes, but the attentions of young ladies in nightclubs was something of a sweetener for what could potentially be an annoying scenario.
Unfortunately for Vale, it was more a case of no direction as they slumped to a disappointing defeat at the hands of the students, who themselves will surely remember the scoreline rather than the performance in weeks to come.
Following a first half that was conducted at a fairly sedate pace, in which neither goalkeeper was exactly overworked, the visitors broke the deadlock in the first minute of the second half as Aaron James swung a corner towards the back post and Sean Muhsin rose to direct a header into the net.
Vale showed a reaction to going behind and almost equalised when Chris Inglis met a Kayne Paterson corner, but Watt keeper Craig Saunders tipped the header over well.
Watt doubled their lead in the 57th minute. James was again the provider, floating a free kick into the Vale area, where Andy Forbes jumped unchallenged to send a header over the head of Inglis, which dropped inside the far post.
The students made sure of the points with a third in the 77th minute, when a Muhsin cross was turned into his own net by Darren Thomson.
To be fair to the Vale substitute, if he hadn’t got a touch on it there were a couple of Watt players arriving behind him who looked odds-on to make sure the ball ended up in the net anyway.
The students could have had more – a shot from substitute Ronnie Napier flew wide by a matter of centimetres, while a free kick was awarded on the edge of the area after Vale defender Jack Blaikie was penalised for hand ball, Napier rolling the ball across for Muhsin to hit a cracking shot off the crossbar.
The game petered out as the clock ran down, Watt more than happy with a three-goal margin of victory and Vale long since realising that it was just not going to be their day.
Vale of Leithen: S. Inglis, C. Gordon (D. Thomson), J. Draper, R. McKenzie, J. Blaikie, C. Inglis, W. Sproule, K. Paterson, S. Moffat, D. Noon, M. Cairney.