2nd December 2006
Dunfermline RFC 9-9 Musselburgh RFC
Since moving to Fife in 1993, I sort of followed the fortunes of Dunfermline Rugby Club by the lazy expedient of simply looking up their result in the local rag each week. I knew where McKane Park was in the town (on the southern edge), but this visit in 2006 was my first. The extensive grounds of McKane Park, so I have been told, actually belong to Dunfermline Cricket Club who let out a corner of it to their oval ball chasing friends. There is a small pavilion used by both clubs, and rather rickety looking wooden shelter which runs along one length of the rugby pitch.
Dunfermline, I knew had made a good start to their campaign in the Scottish Premiership League Division Three, and were today hosting one of their rivals for promotion: Musselburgh. I am no expert in analysing rugby matches (or indeed football ones, I acknowledge), but it looked to me as if these two sides just cancelled each other out. The ball rarely seemed to leave the middle third of the field, and I am sure some of the backs never touched the thing once, such was the way each pack jealously guarded possession.
All the points came from either penalties or drop-goals, with both sides having late opportunities to sneak a win. In dying minutes of regulation time Musselburgh’s Stewart sclaffed a penalty wide when it looked, to an outsider like me anyway, a straightforward enough kick. Then in injury time Dunfermline’s Ali O’Connor had a whack from much further out, but his attempt just drifted wide.
Amongst the hundred or so spectators, I was surprised to see what looked like former Dunfermline Athletic manager Dick Campbell. Or it could have been his twin Ian. Or both of them. Or neither, I suppose.
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| Welcome to McKane Park. |
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| The McKane Park pavilion. |
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| The wooden shelter. |
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| A closer view. |
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| I am afraid my stitching software has made the McKane Park playing surface look rather more bumpy than it actually is. |
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