|
Player Records
In this issue I thought it would be of
interest to look at appearance records for Cowden. The undernoted table gives details of
the 11 players who have made more than 200 league appearances for the Blue Brazil.
| 1. Ray Allan (1972-89) 422 |
7. Bill Murray (1921-27) 217 |
| 2. Willie Pullar (1921-30)
294 |
8. Rab Russell (1973-82)
210 |
| 3. Denis Jack (1961-71)
276 |
9. Dave McGovern (1986-93)
208 |
| 4. Tom Glancy (1925-34)
264 |
10. John Falconer
(1921-28) 204 |
| 5. Andy Kinnell (1964-72)
230 |
11. Jim Taylor (1966-73)
201 |
| 6. Davy Ross (1969-76) 223 |
Interesting to see 5 of the names hail from
Cowdenbeath (Allan, Jack, Glancy, Kinnell & Russell). Another appearance record that
may be of interest is that for the most consecutive league appearances for the club. 7
players have played in more than 100 consecutive league games for Cowden as follows,
| 1. Jim Burns 144 |
5. Bill Murray 104 |
| 2. Bobby Wilson 123 |
6. Dave Hopewell 103 |
| 3. Duncan Lindsay 116 |
7. Ray Allan 101 |
| 4. Willie Devlin 104 |
Another fascinating area is that of penalties and
of course Cowden have had 2 goalkeepers who were experts in saving penalty kicks Ray Allan
and Ernie McGarr. Ernie saved 5 (50%) of the 10 penalties he faced in his short spell with
Cowden. Ray's record on a season by season basis is as follows:
| Season |
Scored |
Saved |
Season |
Scored |
Saved |
| 1972/73 |
2(66%) |
1(33%) |
1982/83 |
6(60%) |
4(40%) |
| 1973/74 |
6(66%) |
3(33%) |
1983/84 |
5(56%) |
4(44%) |
| 1974/75 |
0 |
0 |
1984/85 |
6(66%) |
3(33%) |
| 1975/76 |
0 |
0 |
1985/86 |
2(40%) |
3(60%) |
| 1978/79 |
0 |
0 |
1986/87 |
1(100%) |
0 |
| 1979/80 |
3(100%) |
0 |
1987/88 |
2(50%) |
2(50%) |
| 1980/81 |
7(87%) |
1(13%) |
1988/89 |
7(78%) |
2(22%) |
| 1981/82 |
5(71%) |
2(29%) |
1989/90 |
3(100%) |
0 |
These statistics are very revealing and suggest
that Ray was at his penalty saving peak in the period 1982 to 1986. His best season in
percentage terms was 1985/86 with 4 penalty saves in 1 season being his best tally.
Penalties which were missed but not saved by Ray have been left out of these calculations
for simplicity's sake. Therefore, overall, Ray saved 25 out of the 80 penalties he faced
in competitive fixtures for Cowden - a very impressive saving rate of 31.25%, he saved
around 1 in every 3 penalties he faced. These stats don't include saves in penalty shoot
outs where Ray also had an impressive record. Among those players who saw penalties saved
by Raymond were Eamonn Bannon, John Jobson, Ian Campbell, Graeme Armstrong, John Colquhoun
(twice!), Willie Johnston Frank McAvennie, Dave Beaton, Sammy Conn and Alan Lawrence. Ray
is one of Cowden 'keepers to save 2 penalties in a game (a feat he performed twice v
Kilmarnock and Stirling Albion), Bob Middleton and Billy Lamont also achieved this but
John Falconer surpassed them with a remarkable hat-trick of saves in a match v Hibs.
We're always on the lookout for your comments or questions on Cowden games from the past. Where possible, Dr O' Rak will come up with an answer to your Cowden related trivia. If you have any Cowden trivia that you would like researched, drop an email to webmaster@blue-brazil.co.uk
|
When
you follow a club such as Cowdenbeath that has failed
to deliver regular cup or championship glory, it
is easy to forget how good the good times were and
how really bad things have got. Our very
own club historian Dr O'Rak is always there in your
time of need to give you that piece of well-researched
information which put the LEG in LEGEND.
