Football: Glens boss receives Whitletts Victoria though text message

Dec 19 2012 By Douglas Dickie

Willie Harvey has admitted his frustration at having to enjoy Glencairn’s 4-0 thrashing of Whitletts Victoria through text message.

The Glens gaffer was forced to work on Saturday meaning he handed the reins to his assistants Joe Pryce and Rab Torrance.

While Willie has every faith in the pair to get the result, he was left cursing the network as he waited for news to arrive from Ayrshire.

Any football fan who finds themselves unable to see the action for themselves knows the feeling of helplessness that goes with waiting for news of their team.

And they also know that moment of terror mixed with excitement when a text arrives.

Thankfully for Willie, there wasn’t any bad news coming from the game as Glens moved up to fifth in the league.

He joked: “Maybe the club will get rid of me and just have Rab and Joe in charge.

“I was getting texts from (committee members) Peter Ferguson and Eddie Smith, they kept me in touch with what was happening.

“I had a running commentary actual. The worst is the first text when you hear it and a bit of you doesn’t want to look at it.

“Rab and Joe were quite happy with the performance, especially after such a long time without a game. I think there was some rustiness early on in front of goal but once we scored we were in charge.

“Maybe we should have been two or three up at half-time but in the second half Brett Agnew again does what he’s good at and scores the second goal and that helped us relax.”

The win lifts Glens to fifth in the league, but they have games in hand over all their rivals.

It certainly makes a change from last year when Glens were second bottom of the league with just six points. Willie said: “Obviously we’ve still got to get the points on the board but I’m happy to be in the bunch at the top end of the table.

“If you had given me this at the start of the season I would have bitten your hand off.

“It’s disappointing this week is a cup game (against Forth Wanderers) but I guess the main thing is we are getting a game.”

One team Glens have in their sights is Hurlford United who Glens are due to play on the last Saturday of the year. Willie wants to get the Forth game out of the road first, but the fans may already have one eye on the trip to Ayrshire.

Willie said: “I don’t want to say the cup doesn’t matter but the league is obviously the priority.

“Hurlford suffered a bad defeat at Kilbirnie on Saturday and we knocked them out the Scottish Cup on a day we were lucky not to be four down at half-time, our keeper Kevin Montgomery kept us in it.

“But it would be disrespectful to Forth to say I am already thinking about Hurlford. We’ll worry about them when the time comes.”