East Fife respond to Billy Brown rant

Whether by accident or design, East Fife manager Billy Brown’s well-publicised rant after last Saturday’s defeat by Stenhousemuir helped galvanise the Methil club to a 2-1 home success over second top Alloa on Saturday.

Bobby Barr helped the Methil club’s fight to avoid relegation when he turned home a Collin Samuel cross six minutes from the break. Paul Willis’s deflected effort slipped through the hands of goalkeeper Scott Bain 11 minutes into the second half and East Fife held on, despite Jonathan Tiffoney pulling a goal back, and moved to within two rpoints of eighth-placed Stranraer.

Brown said: “The players worked extremely hard against a very good Alloa side and they were helped by a different atmosphere in the ground.”

Alloa boss Paul Hartley said: “The goals we lost were disappointing and the intensity of our game was not there.”

Brown’s side are still not safe from automatic relegation as bottom side Albion Rovers defeated third-placed visitors Brechin 3-1, through goals by Kevin Green, Chris Dallas and David Crawford to keep their faint survival hopes alive. Alan Trouten scored for Brechin, whose goalkeeper, Michael Andrews was dismissed.

Champions Queen of the South won 4-0 at Forfar through goals by Michael Paton and a Nicky Clark hat-trick to move within a point of a new Second Division points record.

Arbroath moved into the last remaining play-off place thanks to a 1-0 success over Stranraer at Gayfield, player/ manager Paul Sheerin scoring the winner on 26 minutes.

Stenhousemuir are still in the hunt for promotion. Goals by Sean Dickson, John Gemmell (2) and Darren Smith secured a 4-0 victory over Ayr United.