The 2025 league season started on Sunday 2nd March. despite a tough opening group of fixtures the squad was looking forward to a, hopefully, successful afternoon. We were starting with a tough fixture against constant premiership team Arbroath, followed by last year’s unbeaten championship winners Forfar, then top four premiership team Luncarty and finally current premiership champions Dundee East.

We started with a tie against Arbroath – Maroon. The game started well for Raith with a foul on Davey Ramsay in the penalty area leading to a penalty. John Wylie stepped up and beat Dave Beattie in the Arbroath goal however the ref adjudged him to have lifted his foot and disallowed the goal. Two minutes later Arbroath were pinged for a third running offense and it was time for another penalty to Raith. This time Kev Henderson stepped up. He hit the ball without raising his foot but “Beats” guessed right and saved the penalty. It wasn’t long until there was another penalty. This time it was for Arbroath for three running fouls against Raith. The Arbroath player struck it high into the top right corner to beat Harry. 0-1 Raith continued to press but found it hard to pass the ball through a dense Arbroath defense. However in the 12th minute Arbroath gave away another running penalty. This time Davey Ramsay stepped up and beat the keeper low to his left. With time running out, and against the run of play, a great save from Harry gave Arbroath a corner. From the corner they secured a kick in from the left wing. With all of the Raith players concentrating on the ball no one noticed the Arbroath player on his own at the right hand side of the box and when the ball got to him he beat Harry to give Arbroath a 1-2 win.
Raith Rovers 1-2 Arbroath – Maroon
Dundee East 1-2 Oriam
Fairfield CSH 2-2 Luncarty
Forfar WF 3-0 Hearts

Next up were Forfar with a few familiar faces in their squad. A quick start for Raith saw Kev score from distance after some good build up work in the first minute. In the second minute a John Wylie shot was saved and, from the resultant corner Scott hit the post. A minute later and John hits the bar. It’s constant pressure from Raith. However in five minutes Gordon “Gogs” Smith takes the ball down Forfar’s left wing and fires in a spectacular shot to level the score. In the ninth minute the referee awards a penalty to Forfar after a tackle in the penalty area. Gogs steps up to get his second goal of the game for a 1=2 Forfar lead. two minutes later a shot from Kev leads to a corner from which Neil hits the post. There’s more raith pressure until Gogs once again gets a good shot in which brings out a good save from Harry. However a minute later Forfar get a third from a contested ball at the edge of the box. With time running out, and almost the last touch of the game, Kev Henderson gets a shot off and scores to cut the deficit to one.
St James 1-1 Oriam
Arbroath – Maroon 2-2 Luncarty
Dundee East 2-1 Hearts
Raith Rovers 2-3 Forfar WF

Then it was on to game three and Luncarty. Another quick start from Raith saw Davey Ramsay shoot just wide in the second minute. Raith continued to press until, against the run of play, Luncarty scored in the eighth minute. A minute later it was three runs by Luncarty and a Raith penalty. Davey Ramsay beat the keeper but the ref disallowed it for another raised foot. Two minutes later and it was a penalty to Luncarty for three running offenses. This time the shooter missed to the keeper’s right but was also pinged for a raised foot. Raith continued to push for the remainder of the game but to no avail and Luncarty ran out winners 0-1.
Raith Rovers 0-1 Luncarty
St James 2-1 Hearts
Arbroath Maroon 0-0 Forfar WF
Dundee East 2-2 Fairfield CSH

Our final game of the day was against Dundee East and started badly with Dundee East scoring through Andy Elwood in the second minute. From then the game developed into a bit of a slugfest with Raith dominating the possession but unable to break a stubborn Dundee defence. A rare Dundee East shot in the tenth minute brought out a great save from Harry and although Dundee did beat Harry the scorer was rightly pulled up for running. Then in the thirteenth minute Raith restored parity with a fine strike from the right by Ally Grant. Raith continued to press but were unable to breach the Dundee defence for a second time and the game finished 1-1.
Oriam 1-1 Hearts
St James 3-1 Fairfield CSH
Luncarty 0-1 Forfar
Raith Rovers 1-1 Dundee East

The final two games of the afternoon were:
Oriam 3-0 Fairfield CSH
St James 0-0 Arbroath – Maroon

Reflections: Not a great day at the office, results wise. However the general play and possession was very good. Putting away some of our penalties and being a bit more disciplined could have turned results our way. Penalty taking practice will be taking priority over the next couple of weeks.