‘The season feels wasted’ – Bonnyrigg Rose skipper on SFA licence blow

Johnny Stewart celebrates after winning the East of Scotland League title

The fallout from Rose finding out their fate via email last week after months of preparation continues to rumble on with the club exploring all avenues in their aim to get the decision overturned. The New Dundas Park club have kick-started an appeals protest on the basis that their ground would meet the requirements in time for next season, with floodlights to be installed over the summer.

The news came just days after what the club believed would go down as their biggest result in its history, a stunning comeback away to Broxburn Athletic – who were incidentally awarded their licence on the day Bonnyrigg learned they wouldn’t – to be crowned East of Scotland champions.

“We went from a massive high to a massive low just in the matter of a few days,” said Stewart. “Our comeback at Broxburn, being two-nil down with ten men, to come back and win 3-2 to become champions was amazing. It was a great feeling to come back and win.

“The celebrations at the end, with everyone on the park, were brilliant. We made our way back to Bonnyrigg and had good celebrations there all night and pretty much Sunday as well, to be honest. Then we got the news that we weren’t getting our licence on the Tuesday, so it was massive blow. All the boys were devastated, and we felt all the hard work we had put in over the season had gone to waste and it was kind of like ‘what was the point?’- it was like a season wasted, so to speak.

“It is disappointing to get knocked back for the licence especially given the circumstances. The committee at Bonnyrigg have done a great amount of work getting the ground ready going by the old criteria that they were told they had to meet. To change the criteria the night before the audit was a bit unfair to say the least, especially when the club has plans in place to put floodlights in over the summer. I don’t really understand how they can knock us back but I think the club is still trying to do everything possible to reverse that decision so it is just a waiting game for us at the moment.

“When we first applied for our licence we were under the impression that it wouldn’t be a problem and then the goalposts moved a little bit regarding the floodlights. We went into the play-off game expecting the winners to be promoted – we hadn’t heard anything different. It was just a bit strange timing to announce that we weren’t getting our licence two days after the play-offs.”

Rose have since crashed out of two semi-finals since that spectacular afternoon in Broxburn, but still have a lot to play for this season with a potential treble on the cards. They host Bo’ness United in the quarter-finals of the King Cup tomorrow, and take on Lowland League champions East Kilbride in the SFA South Region Challenge Cup on Sunday, May 16 at Meggetland.

Robbie Horn’s men will be seeking revenge when Max Christie’s side arrive in town, given the BUs put Rose out of the League Cup semi-final, which they went on to win on Sunday, and were the only team to defeat Rose in Conference B.

Stewart continued: “It just shows you how good a season we have already had. We’ve made the latter stages of basically every competition we’ve been in this season. It proves we are the best team in the East of Scotland, we’ve just got to pick ourselves up and go again.

“Bo’ness kind of celebrated like they had won the league when they beat us at home, but fair play to them they have done really well since Max took over, and we will need to be back out our best to beat them.”