East Kilbride Thistle Amateurs rounded off their pre-season preparations with their final friendly against Tynecastle AFC, in which the Strathclyde Cup winners defeated the Jags 4-1 in a well contested friendly in which the Jags only had 12 of their signed players present.
Thistle started well and for the first 15 minutes were close to having the upper hand. The first Tynecastle goal saw the Jags heads slip slightly as a well worked move saw the ball cut back 8 yards from goal before the Tynecastle winger bent the ball beautifully into the top corner to open the scoring.
Tynecastle added to their lead soon after, this time a cut back on the other side that managed to just beat the outstretched leg of Daniel Bryant to make the score 2-0.
Tynecastle's third goal was the pick of the bunch when they were awarded a free kick 25 yards from goal. The taker stepped up and curled the effort perfectly inside the post leaving Thistle slightly downheartened come half time.
Andy Bryant provided the half time pick me up and the boys went out with the confidence to play more of the nice football that they had played in the first half and it paid off when Thomas Tracey took the ball past the centre half and struck sweetly with his left foot from outside the box and across the face of goal to reduce the deficit and make the score 3-1.
Stuart Service then saw a shot saved by the Tynecastle goalkeeper as Thistle pressed for a second to make the game interesting again but as they pressed Tynecastle managed to exploit and punish as some great work from their number 11 saw him play the ball across the face of goal for an easy tap-in to make it 4-1.
It would have been more if not for the face of Bryant as he dove across goal and had the ball strike him on the nose, halting play for 10 minutes while he was patched up. With pre-season now at an end, Thistle can look forward to their opening league fixture against Hardgate on the 18th. The game will be played at the Showpark and will be the usual 10am kick off. All the best go to Bernie and the guys at Tynecastle who we are sure will have a sucessful season.
STARTING XI: Bryant (GK), O'Farrell, McKelvie, Grassie, Macgregor, Service, McGlone (C), Brown, Trialist, Revill, Tracey
SUBS: Trialist, Scott
