How Edinburgh City maintain grip on second spot with win at Stirling Albion

Ouzy See was on target for Edinburgh City.

Striker Ouzy See scored the only goal at Forthbank to take the Citizens three points clear of their opponents with just four matches remaining.

With the league now splitting into top and bottom halves, Gary Naysmith’s men will play champions Queen’s Park, Elgin, Stranraer and last night’s opponents Stirling with a play-off berth now firmly in their grasp.

Naysmith made four changes from Saturday’s 3-2 defeat to Queen’s Park, Marc Laird, Liam Brown, Rafa De Vita and Conrad Balatoni replacing Craig Thomson, Liam Henderson, Josh Campbell and Andy Black respectively.

Despite the Capital men enjoying the brighter start, it was the hosts who came closest to opening the scoring in the 20th minute. Binos skipper Ross McGeachie saw the ball land in his favour 20 yards from goal and his first-time effort was heading for the far corner only for Brown to intervene and clear the ball of the line.

The visitors did find a route to goal 12 minutes before the interval and what a gift it was. Having received a pass from team-mate Kyle Banner, goalkeeper Cammie Binnie tried to outfox See, only to lose possession to the 26-year-old, who had the simplest tasks of rolling the ball into an empty net.

Binnie looked suspect again six minutes after the restart when he failed to collect a Danny Handling cross but Sam Denham headed over.

Kevin Rutkiewicz’s men thought they had equalised with 17 minutes left to play, but Laird was on hand to scoop Jordan Allan’s header clear.

Stirling threw caution to the wind with a triple change with five minutes remaining but the City rearguard stood firm to seal all three points.