Leith Athletic 2
Peebles Rovers 1
EoS QUALIFYING CUP
AN own goal in the closing stages of the match saw Peebles goalkeeper Kris Lennie turn from hero to villain in a matter of minutes.
With the scores at 1-1 and a draw looking likely as the game came to a close, the visiting stopper appeared to lose his grip on things all together. Firstly, in the 89th minute he was booked for timewasting after his fourth or fifth warning from referee Keith Maskell. And then, as the game went into a fifth-minute of injury time, Lennie, who had previously pulled off a series of amazing stops, dropped a ball from Steven Lynch into his own net, allowing the home side to progress into the knock-out stages of the competition.
Leith needed the win to go through as the best third-placed club at the expense of Whitehill Welfare. But, from the word go, Peebles were out to prove they were no pushovers. Craig Edgar put away a penalty in the fifth minute after his path to the Leith goal was obstructed by Iain Gordon.
The home side created chance after chance, but keeper Lennie pulled off some remarkable saves to prevent an equaliser. Half-Time: Leith Athletic 0 Peebles Rovers 1.
The second half started as the first ended, with the home side having plenty of the ball, but having little luck when it came to taking their chances.
In the 51st minute, however, the scores were levelled when a pass from Lewis Cairns was collected by Lewis Tracey, who side-stepped the Peebles defender and placed his shot into the bottom right hand corner of the net.
Further chances were created, but Leith couldn’t get by Lennie and some great goalkeeping and fortuitous defending kept the score all square going into the last 10 minutes.
After a series of Leith corners, Lennie produced another wonder save from a point-blank Neil Lowson header and it looked like the game was going to finish a draw and Whitehill would progress.
But, with firstly the booking and then the spillage, Leith scraped through by the narrowest of margins at the expense of the visiting keeper.
Peebles Rovers: K. Lennie, P. Hunter, A. Williamson, C. Edgar, J. Girdwood, I. Morris, S. Girdwood, G. Manson, R. Williamson, D. Linton, S. Gordon, J. Carter, D. Gormley, S. Joyce.