42

Station Park

Saturday 19^th September 2026

So this is how I return to earth with a bump, from a Europa League game at the BayArena to Scottish League Two action at Station Park in just 66 hours. The contrast probably couldn’t be much bigger if I tried and to be honest it’s probably the best way to get back into the swing of getting round the 42.

I might have hoped to get down to Ochilview today to see Arbroath play Stenhousemuir but the scheduling of the cricket club end-of-season dinner put paid to that plan and instead I needed to find something a little closer to home. Fortunately Forfar at home allowed me to return my focus to League Two and hopefully avoid a situation where it gets close to the end of the season and I haven’t managed to see a team at risk of finishing bottom.

It’s still early days in the 2026/27 season but Forfar feel as though they may be in the mix for the dreaded last place finish and a play-off against one of the Highland or Lowland teams. There was a fair bit of pessimism around the club before the season started as they lost a few mainstays from last season to other clubs and recruitment seemed to be a bit lacking.

Seven points from their first three games saw them riding high in the table though and fans could have been forgiven for thinking that their pessimism might have been misplaced. Going into this game though that has all changed again. The Loons have managed just a single point from the last four league games, scoring just twice and conceding 12 times in the process. They have also tumbled from the early league position down to seventh (which would be eighth but for Edinburgh City’s annual points deduction). Injuries abound and the pressure seems to be growing for manager Jim Weir.

Their opponents, Annan Athletic, sit just a single point above Forfar but come into the game on a very different run of form. By contrast they started the season terribly with five straight defeats in all competitions, shipping 20 goals in the process. Over the last few weeks however they have had confidence building wins at home to relegation competitors Dumbarton and promotion chasing Elgin. Whether they can build on these results after a three hour drive north from the England border might help determine whether they are looking up or down the table for the rest of the season.

Despite the name of the ground, Forfar is one of the largest towns in Scotland not to be served by the rail network thanks to the Beeching cuts in the 1960s. This meant I really only had one option to get to the game and that would be another drive down the A90. The forecast for the afternoon was about as good as you could hope for in Scotland in September; clear blue skies, sunshine, and a balmy 17°. With my newly acquired FC Köln scarf and a freshly charged car I set off down the road.

Once on the road I realised that it was actually much windier than I had thought. The car was being buffeted as I was driving and whilst it wasn’t quite the Gayfield wind machine it certainly threatened to impact on the game.

I made it down to the ground and discovered that gates didn’t open until 1430 which seems bizarrely late for a 1500 kick-off. I used the time to get a few photos before joining another fan sitting on a grass verge to wait to be let in. Inside the ground there isn’t a great deal to see. A raised stand on one side runs half the length of the pitch with terracing below. The other three sides all have terracing of varying heights and with only one side being covered. I generally like raised stands but was glad I hadn’t bought a ticket for it as every seat seems to have an impeded view thanks to nine pillars right at the front.

After picking up a cup of tea I opted for the west terrace as it is comfortably the highest with 20 steps to the top and so gives a pretty good perspective of the whole pitch. With the players out Forfar elected to kick into the wind in the first half and the game got underway. The three fans next to me weren’t particularly interested in the early stages as they instead focused on a competition to throw horse chestnuts into a bin at the bottom of the steps (final score, 0 – 0).

On the pitch it was easy to see why the play wouldn’t hold anyone’s attention. It was very stop start with the referee involved constantly and probably more than he needed to be. A couple of half chances fell to Annan but the Forfar goal was never really in danger. Forfar had been kicking long and hoping the ball would hold up in the wind but Annan were dealing with the clearances very easily.

The first (and, spoiler alert, last) time that either team tried to keep the ball on the ground led to a goal. Forfar attacked down the right hand side and Ethan Crombie was played in on the overlap. His cross picked out fellow Dundee loanee Luca Perrie who rose just high enough to get his head to it and guide the ball home off the post.

Falling behind led to Annan player-manager Wullie Gibson getting incredibly angry, something not too unusual for him, and taking it out on his team. He didn’t really calm down for the rest of the afternoon. I find the concept of player managers quite odd. Gibson in particular epitomises this quite well, he frequently asked for the ball from his teammates often when he wasn’t the best option but the players clearly felt reluctant to try something else and numerous attacks broke down as a result.

The remainder of the half played out much as it had started. Half chances were as good as it got for either side and every player seemed to be playing hot potato with the ball. No-one tried to keep it at their feet and beat a man but instead looked for a pass backwards or sideways and if this wasn’t on they just knocked it long.

At halftime I overheard a couple of older fans discussing music. One announced that he had just discovered Tears for Fears and was excitedly telling his friend about New Wave and how to find it. From what I had seen of the town as I walked to the ground this felt appropriate for Forfar as they are probably 40 years behind the rest of the world. If they can speed things along a little they might reach the 90s just in time for the current Oasis reunion…

I had a wander round the ground at halftime but chose to stay at the same end as I discovered that the wall behind my terracing was shielding the wind more effectively than the other terraced areas.

The quality on the pitch didn’t really improve after the break. Forfar had a couple of early half chances, both of which fell to Perrie. The best of these was a half volley from distance which moved a fair bit in the wind but was taken easily enough by Charlie Albinson in the Annan goal. Those chances out the way Forfar seemed to settle for one goal probably being enough.

At the other end Annan were denied a penalty when a fairly clear handball by Mackenzie Lemon was waved away by the referee. My personal highlight of the second half was the countdowns for throw-ins. A new introduction this season aimed at reducing time-wasting and the referee had been hot on these during the first half, starting as soon as a player picked up the ball and counting quickly from five to one. Naturally no-one was looking to waste time in the first half with the score at 0 – 0. In the second half though, and with Forfar a goal up, the referee didn’t bother with a single countdown and the home players made the most of it. To fill the void the travelling Annan fans took it on themselves to provide the countdown with added boos whenever they got to zero without the throw-in being taken.

The best chances for Annan all came from Gibson set pieces. There were a couple of corners that caused a few problems and right on the final whistle they won a free kick on the edge of the box. Gibson lined it up and hit it well with the ball headed to the bottom right hand corner of the goal before Neil Stafford got down to tip it round the post. The resulting corner led to a scramble in front of goal but the referee’s whistle thankfully brought an end to proceedings.

It’s difficult to know whether this game was objectively awful or whether it suffered from natural comparisons to what I had seen last week in Germany. It’s probably a good thing to have got back to Scottish football in such a typical way and hopefully it can only get (slightly) better from here. What I can say for sure is that I wasn’t overly enamoured with Forfar. It seems to be considered a bit of a lower league gem online but for me it didn’t have much going for it and have preferred many other grounds to Station Park. Not somewhere I’ll be rushing to go back to.

The Facts

• Ground
  • Station Park
• Home
  • Forfar Athletic
• Away
  • Annan Athletic
• Competition
  • Scottish League Two
• Result
  • 1 – 0
• Scorers
  • Luca Perrie
• Attendance
  • TBC
• Cost
  • £16
• Total distance travelled
  • 104 miles
• Transport
  • Car
• My MotM
  • Luca Perrie, to be honest there weren’t many stand out performances today and it was a bit of a thought as to who I would give this to. In the end I went with the easy option and chose the player who got the only goal.