Tynecastle striker '˜heartbroken' over Alex Jack final ban

Pieyam Khosrowpour will miss the Alex Jack Cup final

The striker was left in utter disbelief after being sent off for offensive, insulting and abusive language in the first half of Monday night’s 1-0 friendly victory over Blackburn United.

Stevie Vinter’s men go head-to-head with Lothian Thistle Hutchison Vale at Riccarton this weekend (3.15pm kick-off) in pursuit of the East of Scotland’s first piece of silverware of the season without Khosrowpour, who has been a revelation since joining Tynie in the summer.

The 29-year-old was involved in a spat with an opposing player and, although he admitted to using some coarse language at his rival, the referee deemed it had been aimed at him instead.

“I said it’s just a friendly with which he replied ‘you can’t call me that regardless’,” Khosrowpour explained. “But I tried to assure him it was at their player and not the ref but he was having none of it. I said we’ve got a cup final on Sunday but he insisted he was still going to put it through.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be missing out on a final over something like that. I’ve been heartbroken all week. What’s worse is the ref said before the game that he wouldn’t really be issuing any cards if he didn’t have to as it was only a friendly.

“It’s not often you get to play in cup finals so I had my whole family coming along. It’s so disappointing.

“The whole team is looking forward to it given what happened a couple of weeks ago when we were beaten 3-0 by Lothian. It was disappointing and we’ve looked over it again and it was just silly mistakes that cost us. But anything can happen in a final.”

Ormiston, meanwhile, host Eyemouth United on league business having picked up their first points of the campaign in last weekend’s crushing 6-0 defeat of Burntisland Shipyard.

Heriot-Watt University have the chance to go top outright with victory at Peebles Rovers.