Laidlaw Benefits from Laid Low McGurn

The corridors of Stark’s Park are as you would expect from any football club. The walls are adorned with pictures of great players and great moments of the past, with a particular emphasis on the 1994 League Cup final victory. Pride of place in the board room is a painted montage of the game and features amongst other scenes, an image of Scott Thomson diving to his right to keep out Paul McStay’s penalty.

As this week is the anniversary of Thomson’s finest moment and Rovers greatest victory there seemed more than a touch of coincidence that I found myself chatting to the man who currently wears Raith’s number 1 jersey, Ross Laidlaw. The 20-year-old has performed with distinction since stepping in for the injured David McGurn in October and was arguably Raith’s best player during Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Airdrie. He explained to me that his inspiration for becoming a goalkeeper was very much family orientated.

“My Dad was a keeper when he was younger, he played at junior level, and his cousin was also a footballer, Roddy Mackenzie who played in goals for Hearts and Livingston. I’ve always wanted to be a footballer even when I was really young and watching them made me want to be a goalkeeper as well.”

Hailing from Linlithgow his ability was noticed at an early age by one of Rovers First Division rivals. “I signed for Falkirk when I was 12 and spent a couple of years there before joining Livingston, I then spent 2 years there before joining Rovers and worked my way up through the under 17’s, under 19’s, and now this is my second season as a full timer with the first team.”

In his time at Raith, Ross has worked alongside some experienced keepers and coaches who he feels have all aided his development. “I worked with Gary O’Connor at the start, then Andy McNeil who was full-time for a while and even trained with us when he was at Montrose. He was different class with me and it was great to have him take the time out to help me with different aspects of my game. Wayne Henderson, the goalkeeping coach is great with me, and although David McGurn is part-time all the players train together on a Tuesday and a Thursday which is good.”

David McGurn’s exemplary form in his time at Stark’s Park has seen him not only become a fan favourite but also be regarded as one of Rovers finest custodians. Whilst that has so far restricted Ross’ first team appearances, he still takes the positives from the situation, “It’s a huge benefit as you want to learn from the best and that’s how I see it, I’m training with a great goalkeeper and I’m learning from him all the time. The training’s really high quality and I’m constantly pushing myself to try to become as good as Davie. It makes me feel a bit more pressure when I play as I know how well he’s done but it makes me raise my game as I know that just playing okay won’t be enough, I’ve got to try to play exceptionally every game.”

As his confidence grows with each appearance he makes this season, he admits that his debut in a vital game against Morton last term was a far more nervy affair, “I found out on the Thursday that Davie was injured and I was really nervous going into it. It’s hard as a goalkeeper going into your first game, you always think what could happen if you make a mistake since it could lead to a goal but I was really glad that I played well. I made a couple of good save early doors and settled myself in, then we scored 5 goals and I was hoping it would be like that every week. It was great experience as a young keeper playing a couple of games last season, Morton was a 6 pointer and then Queen of the South away was a big game too but I was disappointed to lose a late goal with about 5 minutes to go.”

While that taste of first team action whetted his appetite for more, he tried to keep his ambitions for this season fairly grounded, “Before he left, John McGlynn offered me a new deal and said he hoped to use me a bit more, then Grant came in and just told me to go for it. I was hoping to get a few games pre-season which I did against Hearts and Motherwell and then play in the reserve games and if my chance came in the first team then I just wanted to take it. I got that when Davie got sent off against Montrose in the cup, then I was supposed to play against Partick in the live game in the next round but I went over on my ankle in a bounce game against Heriot Watt University. I was desperate to play because I thought it might have been the only opportunity I had this season so I was gutted to miss out.”

He didn’t have to wait long for a more prolonged run in the team though and Saturday’s game saw him record his third clean sheet in just nine

appearances for Raith. He admits that he’s been happy with his form with the exception of one game, “I think I’ve done well and I’ve enjoyed it but I was obviously disappointed with the goal I conceded against Dunfermline. It was a big game and although you’re always gutted to lose it was a real low point getting beat by them, the 2 sending’s off killed the game but I felt terrible afterwards, it was the worst I’d felt after a match.”

Thankfully though, low points have been reasonably few and far between this season and the change in the management team has coincided with Rovers being involved in far more high scoring encounters than last term. He doesn’t think its down to a complete overhaul of the tactics however, “The new gaffer has tried to take a lot of what McGlynn did and add to it but the games have just been really open this year. We seem to either score or concede quite early so it’s led to a lot of open games. As a keeper I’d probably prefer it if we were winning 1-0 or 2-0 and keeping it tight but its a lot more exciting for the fans if you’re involved in high scoring games and hopefully even more will turn up because of it. We’ve got good strikers who can score goals and 2 wingers that are bombing on and laying on chances. Grant Anderson especially has been different class and Pat, Brian and Spencey have scored a huge amount of goals from crosses this season which has been great to see.”

Raith’s goal scoring exploits has taken them to 4th in the league, a position that is probably above most fans and pundits expectations. Ross insists however that the squad are hoping for slightly more, “The players expect to get as high up the league as we can, we know we’ve got a good starting eleven and everywhere seems strong, defence, midfield and up front. Some games we feel we could have done better and we feel we should have taken 3 points against Airdrie plus we’ve drawn other games this year where we maybe should have won. If we’d managed that then we’d obviously be even higher in the league but 4th place isn’t a bad place to be at this stage. We’re not miles off the top so there’s still time to turn it around.”

Last weeks game against Airdrie was the 2 sides third meeting in as many weeks, and comes at a time when the game’s governing bodies squabble over league reconstruction. Laidlaw believes that despite the negatives, the current system has some merits, especially this term.

“It’s good in a way because you get the derby games, so 4 big matches with big crowds are guaranteed this season with us being in same league as Dunfermline. The downside though is that you can end up drawing someone in the cups and playing them even more, like what we’ve done with Airdrie. We’re going to play them 6 times this season which isn’t a great scenario. Four other derbies against Cowdenbeath mean that it’s not the worst set of circumstances this year, but ideally as a player you’d probably just want to play each time twice a season.”

Looking ahead to Saturday’s game against Deveronvale Ross was adamant that while the team want an extended cup run, they can’t take anything for granted against a talented Highland League outfit, “We’ve already talked about their win over Stirling, plus they beat Wick 6-0 who we played in the first game of the season and won 4-2. They also played Dundee United pre-season and drew 0-0 so we know we need to play well. If we can score early then it’ll calm the nerves as the longer it goes on 0-0 the more nervous the game can become. Hopefully we can get through and continue the run. You want to go as far as you can and ideally you’d get to play on a bigger stage at some point. Celtic Park was a great experience this season, just taking everything in and being involved in a game at a 60,000 all seater stadium was brilliant. Coming up against the likes of Celtic, Rangers, Hearts or Hibs would be a great experience again and it would be tremendous if we could get to the quarters or semi finals again, providing we can get through on Saturday.”

With a bit of luck Saturdays game can be the start of a long cup run, a run that Ross hopes can end in the Spring sunshine at Hampden. It’s unlikely perhaps, but as Jock Brown found out 18 years ago this week, nothing is unthinkable.

Written by Shaughan McGuigan

Back to News