Stirling Albion………………0

East Fife……………………….6

Report by Jamie Hall

at Forthbank

Stirling Albion slumped  to a dismal home defeat at the hands of league leaders East Fife as their playoff hopes suffered another damaging blow.

Ross Brown set the tone for the afternoon when he opened the scoring after just three minutes, before Kevin Smith added a second.

In the second half, Nathan Austin came off the bench to score a double before Stevie Campbell and Ali Coote rounded off the scoring for the visitors.

Stirling were dealt a blow before the game even kicked off, with Ross Smith picking up an injury in the warm-up. The defender was replaced at the back by Scot Buist.

The Binos got off to the worst possible start when they fell behind after just three minutes.

East Fife broke forward at pace and the ball broke to Brown in the box, and although Chris Smith did well to block the midfielder’s initial effort, he was the only one to react and was able to slot home the rebound.

Brown had a great chance to double his side’s lead, but he could only screw a half-volley horribly wide from just inside the box.

However, the visitors’ second goal did arrive with just a quarter of an hour played, and again it came from a fast break. Kevin Smith picked the ball up on the edge of the box and his shot took a wicked deflection, looping up and over Smith and into the back of the net.

There was a further blow to the Binos’ cause when Buist limped off just 20 minutes into his comeback from a hamstring injury.

Steven Doris came close to halving the deficit just before the interval when he got on the end of Mark Lamont’s corner, but Liam Kelly did enough to smother the striker’s effort at the near post.

It took until after the hour mark for the first chance of the second half to arrive, and when it did it went the way of the visitors.

Jamie Insall raced onto a ball over the top of the Albion defence and fired a first-time shot towards goal, but Chris Smith kept his side’s slim hopes of taking something from the game with a terrific save.

However, the Fifers would make the game safe with 17 minutes remaining. Kyle Wilkie slipped the ball through to Nathan Austin, and the striker, just on as a substitute, produced a lovely finish to beat Smith.

And shortly afterwards the East Fife top scorer, so often Albion’s nemesis this season, scored his side’s fourth with a back-post header from Kevin Smith’s cross.

If the Forthbank faithful thought their suffering was complete they were sadly mistaken, and the Fifers added two late goals in quick succession.

Campbell ran at the home defence, and with no challenge forthcoming slotted the ball beyond Chris Smith, before Coote swept home another Smith cross at the far post to compound Albion’s misery.

The defeat leaves the Binos seven points outside the playoff places with just six games of the league season remaining, and they now face an uphill struggle to turn their fortunes around and mount a challenge for promotion.

Stirling Albion: C. Smith, Johnston, Forsyth, Robertson, Buist (McGeachie), McLear, Dickson (Olanrewaju), Doris, D. Smith (Beattie), Lamont.