Date – 20th April 1996
Venue – Links Park
Competition – Bell’s Scottish Second Division
Result – Montrose 0-3 Stirling Albion
Kick Off – 3.00pm
After trouncing Queen of the South 7-0 the previous week without top scorer Stevie McCormick a large Stirling support travelled up to Montrose in expectation rather than hope. All the Binos needed to do was win to secure their first promotion since 1990/91, where, fittingly, Links Park was also the venue.
The Binos were already in party mood before the game and it did not take long for this mood to improve further as Montrose gave Stirling a helping hand to grasp the Second Division Trophy a little more tightly as a defender lobbed his own goalkeeper to make it 1-0. The 500 odd travelling Albion fans went mental as there appeared to be no way back for a Montrose side that was well on its way to a relegation which they have never really bounced back from.
And there was to be no way back for the Gable Endies as Stirling clinically finished off the match in a fashion that they had so expertly done all season. Alex Bone scored his 16th goal of the season to all but ensure that all three points would be coming back to Stirling before dynamic midfielder Craig Taggart contributed, as he had done all season, with a goal. In the aftermath Taggart was engulfed by Binos as he ran to the wall at the ‘far side’ of Links Park to celebrate his goal.
The Second Division trophy was presented a week later in another noteworthy game against Berwick at Forthbank. Taggart was again to be centre stage, this time at the other end of the park as he deputised for Mark McGeown in goal after Stirling’s regular number one had been sent off. Incredibly, thanks partly to Taggart’s heroics, Stirling went on to win the game 4-3 with Bone and McCormick appropriately scoring a couple of goals for the Binos.
Hopefully scenes such as this can be repeated again this season but there are still eight games to go. Every side we play will be determined to deny us 3 points and even at this stage Gretna must feel they have a very outside chance of promotion.
