Stirling Albion goal hero Darren Smith was pleased to have netted the equaliser in Saturday's draw with Arbroath, but believes it should have secured more than just one solitary point for the Binos, writes Jamie Hall.

The former Motherwell man had an early strike, which would have given his side the lead, ruled out for offside, and he reckons Albion did more than enough to deserve what would have been a first win of 2016.

Smith told Stirling News Sport: “It's always nice to score but we are disappointed not to have got the win. It was a really big game for us and we really should have been taking three points from it but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be. It was a hard game in terrible conditions, but it's often like that up here. We did the best we could.

“I think overall we dominated the game. They had a couple of good chances throughout the match but I think on the balance of play we deserved more than a point. But they scored first and deserved their goal. At the end of the day we haven't lost but we haven't really gained anything either.

“I wasn't sure about the goal that got chalked off. I spoke to the linesman at half time and he said there was a yard or so in it, but I felt I was in line with the defender. It's just one of those things. They have had one disallowed as well and I think both decisions could have gone either way.”

The Binos will have to recover quickly in time for the visit of Montrose on Tuesday, and Smith says they have to get back to winning ways as soon as possible in order to reignite their promotion push.

He said: “The games are coming thick and fast and they are all really important, especially if we are to have aspirations of climbing the table and pushing for top spot. We have a massive game on Tuesday and again on Saturday. We have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and go again.”

In addition to starring for the Binos, Smith is also in the final stages of a Sports Development degree at the University of the West of Scotland, and the 27-year-old is asking fans to fill out a survey for his honours-year dissertation.

As well as helping him achieve top marks, the striker is also hoping that the results of the survey will benefit the Binos in the long run.

He added: “The general hypothesis is that we are looking to gather an awareness of lower league football fans and create a profile so we can understand how they feel about ticket prices, what they feel can be done to improve the overall football experience, and try to understand what their intentions are in the future as to whether they will come back.

"Ideally we want to provide a better matchday experience for the supporters. Depending on the results, it will hopefully benefit the club in terms of bringing in higher attendances.”

You can fill out Darren's survey by clicking on this link: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/KMC2XQR