Peter Grant: People will blame the pitch or the ref but my Alloa lads deserve Betfred Cup win

Alloa manager Peter Grant insisted his part-time players deserved their moment of glory against Hearts and should ignore anyone blaming the pitch or referee.

Alloa manager Peter Grant praised his players for beating Hearts.

Grant was fulsome in his praise after Alan Trouten’s penalty took Alloa into the Betfred Cup quarter-finals for only the second time in their history.

It was the Clackmannanshire club’s first competitive win over Hearts, who disputed the penalty award deep in extra-time.

“People will probably blame the pitch or referee,” said Grant, whose team lost Tuesday’s league game against Hearts 3-0 at Tynecastle.

“If they want to take it down that road, we could have had two penalties the other night and the referee admitted that himself. Sometimes you have to take your medicine and get on with it.

“I thought as a group we worked so hard out of possession. A lot of people will say we play good football and that’s nice to hear, but you need to work so hard and we did that.

“We have shown how good we are in the last two games. Maybe I need to look at myself as I forget these boys are working their socks off at their own job doing all sorts of shifts.

“When Hearts were getting a rub and a massage some of our boys were out working at three o’clock in the morning. That tells you enough but the boys showed that desire and got the result.

“Apart from last week against Queen of the South, I have been so happy with the players. We showed in the second half at Tynecastle and then today what we are capable of.

“Some of Hearts’ players will probably be on more than our squad all together – maybe for the year not just a week.

“Some of the boys were working this morning, one of them until 4:30am. Going into extra-time I was a bit concerned about that but they showed the desire and commitment they have along with their talent.

“I think we deserved it. Our goalie had a double save but Craig Gordon had the best save of the match. We thoroughly deserved it over the piece. People say we don’t score goals but we did that and kept a clean sheet so what more can I ask for?”

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