It's make or break for Irvine Meadow

May 15 2009 by John Woods, Irvine Herald

IT’S all or nothing this week for Irvine Meadow as Chris Strain’s men face two games which could make or break their entire season.

The Ardagh Glass Cup is already in the trophy room, but Meadow still have the Ayrshire Cup – and more importantly – the Premier League title to aim for and crunch games against Annbank on Monday and Pollok on Tuesday will decide their fate.

On paper Annbank look like cup whipping boys but, said Secretary Iain McQueen, they will not be treated lightly.

“We’ve already played them in the Ardagh Glass cup and only managed a 1-0 draw on our own pitch,” said McQueen.

“Annbank will be really fired up for this one, it’s a huge occasion for them and they’ll be desperate to cause an upset.

“We must go about our business properly and we’ll give Annbank every respect.”

Meadow will then be asked to line up against title rivals Pollok less than 48 hours later and McQueen was furious at the timing of the games.

“Why are we being asked to play a game of such importance so soon after a major semi-final?” he fumed.

“Our title hopes depend on us getting a win at Newlandsfield and it’s not fair on our players – but then again that’s been the case since the midweek fixtures started.“

Almost spookily Meadow now find themselves in a repeat of last season’s position where they have to post a points total and ask Pollok to try and beat it.

The Glasgow outfit did it last year but McQueen is hoping for better things this time round.

“We’ve finally laid the Pollok ghost by beating them at Meadow Park so there’s no reason why we can’t do it again next week,” he added.

“If we beat Pollok we take Beith out of the equation so it’s up to us to win up there and tell them to catch us if they can.

“Even then we’ll still need a wee bit of help from someone else, but Pollok have such a big backlog of games that anything’s possible.

“But it’s a big, big game and we must win – that’s the bottom line.”

Meadow have a doubt over the fitness of Chris Strain Junior who has a thigh Strain, but he’s expected to be fit as the club bids to line up its first top flight title win since season 1993-s1994.