A Childhood Dream, a Professional Save.

Every child who dreams about the game begins their dream by visualizing themselves walking out of the tunnel. They picture themselves playing for their favourite team in the whole wide world and as they run out onto the fresh cut pitch, they hear the thundering roar of the crowd and that's where the emotions end. The other night my dream came true infront of 185 fans, on a perfect night for Scotlands reputation of wind and rain. It was the Fife cup semi finals and Raith Rovers came to our park for the match. I felt good in the warm up taking in some skipping balls to adjust to the weather conditions of Scotland. I feel sorry for the person who had to wash the white track top as a result from the warmup, white's usually not the choice of colour for keepers. The team gathered in the changeroom before the kickoff and it was clear what the message was on that day. All we had to do was go out there and enjoy it, take advantage of our opportunity to show our coach that we can play and deserve a spot in the starting 11. Through the tunnel, past the fence and over the race car track to the pitch, which was perfect for play. During the first half it felt like most of the pressure was in our end with a couple opportunities to get a strike on Rovers goal as well. Raith scored just a few moments before half time with a strike from 20 yards out to the backside of the net through traffic. Once the ref blew his whistle I was curious to see how the guys would react in the second half. The second half showed the team's character as we battled back together, everyone was doing their job. We managed to equalize with just a few minutes before full time, on a cracking goal driven to the back post! The match had ended not to much after that and we headed straight into penalties. Raith took the first kick and managed to sneak it by. I was thankful that all my teammates hit the target and did well to make it very difficult for the Rovers keeper by putting a lot of pace on the shot. Raith found themselves in a position having to score in order to continue on. The striker stepped up to the spot to do his part. I on the other hand was feeling pretty good because all the pressure was on him and for a keeper to make any sort of save in penalties could make him the hero. He placed his kick to my right and as I made motion to dive to my right I knew I had the save made before my hands got to the ball. There's something special about going the right direction as the shot in pk's because you have all the opportunity to make the save, probably one of the best feelings in penaltys. The team managed to put Raith Rovers out of the Fife Cup, which was a good result for us as they are one division higher then us. I was happy with how the team played as a unit and despite going a goal down in the first half they never gave up. A few of the boys picked up some bad knocks after the match but we worked hard for one another. It was definately a good game to have my first experience with Scottish football and I'm definately looking forward to spending more time on the field with the lads. There's not too many pros that can say their first game involved penalty kicks.

Final Score: Cowdenbeath 1-1 Raith Rovers (4-3 pks) (Fife Cup)

Cam