NCB spoiled the party for Loanhead in the Lothian & Edinburgh Amateur FA clash at Memorial Park in Loanhead, giving the home side a 4-0 hammering on the day they were presented with a lovely new outfit from generous sponsor, Andrew Abernethy, the Operations Manager with Building Services Scotland.

The Biggar Rugby Club fan from the Roslin-based company said: "Two of the Loanhead players are employees of the company and as we wanted to get involved with the local community we decided to sponsor two new outfits for Loanhead AFC!" Club chairman, Robert Drummond, in expressing his thanks to the club's generous sponsor, said: "We are really grateful for Andrew's help. It is a great lift for us at Loanhead to be given new home and away outfits to wear. It is brilliant!" But NCB showed little respect for the home side in 'top gear' in the way they were turned out. The sartorial elegance of Loanhead was not matched by the standard of play and, playing a totally naive offside game, they were caught out again and again by a much better organised and skillful NCB outfit from Newtongrage.

NCB, too, employed a totally negative and frustrating to watch offside game and, not surprisingly, it was boring to watch at times. But they were much better than Loanhead at this type of game. If I had my way, offside would be banned completely when there are no referees' assistants to help out. Stuart Richardson was an excellent match official at Loanhead, but there is no referee in the world who will get all offside decisions right when he is on his own. How and why footballers at this level, who play the game for the sheer love of it, try to play offside, is beyond comprehension. It is anything but enjoyable to watch. NCB were the better at it, however, and their experienced defenders were never troubled until late in the game when the home side had their best spell.

But all the goals were scored against Loanhead and they were, in some respects, lucky to get away with a 4-0 defeat. Their naive defending was responsible for the goals they lost, the first from an Allan Reid penalty in the 21st minute after Richard Todd was chopped down in the box. Three minutes later, Kenneth Carson best Loanhead keeper, Darren Page, in a race for the ball and he went on to stick it in the back of the net to make it 2-0. That was the score at the break and five mintues in to the second half, NCB went 3-0 ahead when Reid beat the Loanhead offside trip to send a brilliant lob over the advancing Loanhead keeper. The home side did lift their game sufficiently late in the second half, with Kevin Graham going close to scoring on a couple of occasions. However, NCB goalie, Barry Lindsay, was more than equal to the task in keeping a blank scoresheet. To complete a dismal game for Loanhead, Kenneth Janczyk headed a fourth goal for NCB, leaving the home side looking somewhat the worse for wear in their new outfits.