Clyde Alba Win Powerchair Premiership

The Scottish Powerchair League took a novel approach to a league split for season 2017-18. Over the first two match days, each team played every other team once. Based on the results the teams were split into the Premiership and the Championship. Points achieved in those first six first matches were retained. Clyde Alba were placed in the Premiership and Clyde Caledonia in the Championship.

The pre-split matches strongly suggested that the Premiership title race would be a close-run thing between Clyde Alba, South Ayrshire Tigers and Tayside Dynamos, the reigning champions. And so it proved. Going into the final matchday on 26th May, Clyde Alba needed one more win to clinch the title. However, their remaining fixtures were against second placed Tigers and third placed Dynamos.

The opening match was Clyde Alba against Tayside Dynamos. Clyde started the match strongly and it was no surprise when they took the lead with a fabulous goal which involved passes between all the outfield players before Kieran Burns smashed the ball home. A second goal from Ben Hetherington gave Clyde a comfortable 2-0 half time lead. In the second half, Tayside did pull a goal back but a third Clyde goal from Connor McCole sealed a 3-1 victory – and the league title – for Clyde Alba.

In the final Clyde Alba fixture, their opponents, South Ayrshire Tigers, sportingly formed a guard of honour and applauded them onto the pitch. The Clyde players thanked them by hardly giving them a touch of the ball and running out comfortable 3-1 winners.

In the Championship, it was a difficult season for Clyde Caledonia. The very nature of Powerchair football means that players can be unavailable for health reasons. Caledonia were badly affected by this and at times struggled to field a full team. Still, there were some encouraging signs. They did manage a draw with Glasgow Gladiators Bravehearts, who were still in with a chance of winning the Championship going into the final day and in their final fixture against the eventual title winners, Lothian Wolves, the half-time score was 0-0. However, in the second half, the Wolves were able to refresh their team with substitutes (Caledonia didn’t have any) and ran out comfortable winners.  

Things are certainly looking up for Clyde Powerchair football. At the recent North Lanarkshire Council Sports Awards ceremony, Clyde Powerchair FC received the Club of the Year Award and Craig Peattie, one of the coaches, received the Community Coach of the Year Award. 

Also, there is currently a Scotland development squad which it is hoped will develop into an International team. Clyde have six players in that squad and the above mentioned Craig Peattie has been appointed as one of the national coaches. Watch this space as they say.

Final League Positions 2017-18

Premiership

	TEAM	P	W	D	L	PTS
1	Clyde Alba	12	9	2	1	32
2	South Ayrshire Tigers	12	5	4	3	26
3	Tayside Dynamos	12	5	3	4	25
4	Glasgow Gladiators	12	4	5	3	25

Championship

	TEAM	P	W	D	L	PTS
1	Lothian Wolves	12	7	0	5	26
2	Glasgow Gladiators Bravehearts	12	4	1	7	21
3	Clyde Caledonia	12	0	1	11	13