Homesbook Factoring Caplan

Kearan and John Reach Last 16 of eScottish Cup

Clyde were knocked out of the eScottish Cup at Hampden Park last week after defeat to Raith Rovers in the last 16.

The competition was decided by a 2v2 format with the aggregate score between the two matches deciding the final result.

The Bully Wee enjoyed a winning start to the competition with an enthralling

7-1 victory over Airdrieonians to lead Group C after the opening match. This was followed by a 7-3 win over the University of Stirling, before suffering their first defeat of the tournament with a 5-3 loss against Hibernian.

Clyde closed out the Group Stage with a narrow 3-2 defeat against Dundee United, before returning to winning ways by easing to a 7-1 win over Dundee. With a total of nine points from a possible 15, the Bully Wee concluded the Group in third place to reach the knockout stage.

Unfortunately, Kearan and John were unable to progress to the quarter finals after a 5-1 defeat by the Kirkcaldy club. However, despite that, Liam King was full of praise for both players, especially for navigating through a difficult group. He said:-

“We were drawn into the worst group imaginable with four of the six teams having professional FIFA players representing them.

“We would’ve liked to have gone further, but finishing third in that group is a massive achievement. The guys absolutely smashed it and done the Club proud.”

Liam also paid a special mention to Kearan:-

“It was made even more special for Kearan, who as a lot of you may know has a disability in which he was born with no hands. For him to turn up to a professional tournament and beat professional players comfortably, despite his disability is really inspiring and has been great exposure for Clyde.”

Kearan admitted his aim was to progress out of the group and expressed disappointment that they didn’t progress even further. He said:-

“It was honour to play and represent Clyde for the weekend. The event went really well, my goal was to get out of the group as ours was tough on paper. We managed to start well with two wins against very good players and this grew our confidence, which helped us.

“We then had a couple of hard games, which we narrowly lost, but we felt we gave it our all and didn’t look out of place at the top level. We managed to win our last group game which meant we had better seeding for the knockouts. To finish third in the group was a big positive. 

“Unfortunately we lost in the Round of 16, which was a shame as we felt we could have gone further, but these things happen and hopefully we get to do it again soon.”

John also spoke to the official website to offer his thoughts on the competition:-

“It was a great experience to play at Hampden in my first IAN event. On the day, me and Kearan both played very well, we won against Stirling Uni, Dundee, Airdrie and lost to a very good Hibs and Dundee United side by small margins. On reflection, I am extremely proud of how far we came in our first event.”

John concluded by thanking the Club for their support:-

“Clyde is a special club, meeting Liam, Finlay, Graeme and it was really nice to see all the fans’ positive comments on social media.

“I will look out for Clyde’s results and hope to see the club bounce back up soon. It would be a pleasure to represent the Club again in the future.”