Shotts boss haunted by former players as Gartcairn knock them out of West of Scotland League Cup

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Shotts boss John McKeown watched a trio of his former players send his side crashing out of the West of Scotland League Cup on Saturday and admits The Bonny didn’t do enough to merit victory over Gartcairn.Martin Shiels had given Shotts the lead but their West of Scotland First Division rivals equalised on the stroke of half-time through Darren Smith, before ex-Shotts star Jordan Love grabbed the winner for ‘Cairn 10 minutes into the second half.It was a sore one for the Hannah Park side as they exited at the third round stage, but McKeown had few complaints about the result given the quality of opposition.He said: “Gartcairn are a very good side and one of the favourites for our league, and rightly so with the squad they have assembled.“There are three of our ex-players in their side who did really well when they were with us: Barry Healy, Jordan Love and Danny Burns.“As luck would have it, Barry Healy was the best player on the park on Saturday and Jordan Love scored the winner.

They will be getting a much better deal at Gartcairn than we can offer them, unfortunately, but that’s football. It happens in all walks of life.“Gartcairn are a well-run club and are making great strides so sometimes you lose out to clubs like that.“But I don’t think we’re a million miles away from them.“I don’t think there was too much in the game.

They probably deserved their victory with the second half performance. We were dominant for the first half-hour and could have been further ahead.“They equalised in the 46th minute which just changed the whole complexion of the game.

They got ahead early in the second half and then we just huffed and puffed.“We were missing a few big players. Our main centre-halve Chris Meikle had Covid, Kyle