Fort William created their own little bit of Highland League history on Saturday by beating Clach 2-1 and registering their fourth win in a row for the first time.
The match was switched to Grant Street and the visitors took an early lead through a Sean Grant strike but when Paul Brindle levelled 10 minutes after the break Clach were favourites to take the points until Kenneth Mackenzie popped up with a winner six minutes from time.
Elated Fort manager Calum MacLean said: “I thought when Clach levelled that they would go on and win the game but I am delighted to have got it so wrong.
“It certainly wasn’t a game for playing nice football, something we had managed to do in our previous three wins recently, as the Grant Street pitch was very heavy. It was more of a battle and we certainly had to dig deep after that equaliser 10 minutes after half-time.
“We asked the players for three things before the game, firstly we asked them to win the game and get those historic three points, secondly, we asked them to do it for our former chairman, Harry Mackenzie, who was buried last Saturday, and thirdly, to take the Simon Shields trophy back to Claggan Park for the first time.
“Simon had played for both Clach and ourselves before he sadly passed away four years ago at the age of only 23. When we play Clach over the festive period the trophy in his name is at stake, we had never won it before but, thankfully, today the lads did themselves, Harry and Simon proud.”
Clach manager Iain Polworth admitted that once again his side had paid the penalty for missing chances. “We had enough chances to at least take something out of the game and when you don’t take them you don’t deserve to win games, it is as simple as that. We had 16 chances and we only took one, that is a very poor return.
“When you lose soft goals at the other end it doesn’t help either. We lost a goal after only six minutes, yes it was a good free kick, but it was a silly one to give away in the first place, and they certainly punished us.
“We worked hard but lacked that vital edge in the final third. We just weren’t good enough on the day. But having said all that, take nothing away from Fort, we don’t grudge them their four wins in a row, we’re just disappointed that the fourth one came against ourselves.”
The visitors opened the scoring in the sixth minute when Grant hammered the ball past former Fort goalkeeper John Campbell from just outside the box.
Clach were in the ascendency 10 minutes after the restart when Brindle equalised but with just six minutes left Mackenzie scored the winner from 20 yards, his first Highland League goal.