It’s maybe no bad thing that the Montrose squad isn’t packed with Aberdeen-based players these days.
When you’ve only got 39 hours between the final whistle of one match and the starting whistle of the next, every minute on the road is one that could have been better spent in bed.
Rapid-fire fixtures to get an interrupted lower league season completed are the norm for every part-time club below the Championship.
Throw a last-16 Scottish Cup tie into the mix and the contrast between the Gable Endies’ and Kilmarnock’s build-up to their weekend contest was always going to be unbalanced.
🚨 OVERHEAD GOAL ALERT II
Russell McLean doing the business for @MontroseFC away to Fraserburgh yesterday.#ScottishCup pic.twitter.com/OSSOORUAsf
— Scottish Cup (@ScottishCup) April 4, 2021
Thursday night’s league clash with Partick Thistle at Firhill to a 3pm kick-off in Ayrshire two days later would have been a quick and gruelling turnaround as it was. But bringing the start time forward to 12.30pm as a result of Prince Philip’s funeral has lengthened the odds of a cup upset even further.
Petrie can’t remember anything like it.
“I worked it out for myself!” said the Links Park boss of the number of hours that will separate the games.
“And by the time the players get home on the Thursday night – for some of them possibly the early hours of Friday morning – it will be even less than 39 hours.
“The longest distance for our players is Arbroath. We’ve got one who lives there. We’ve got one who comes down from Aberdeen but he’s cup-tied.
“And they’ll be back on the bus, leaving Dundee, before eight o’clock on the Saturday morning.
“The guys will bring some breakfast on the bus with them. You expect them to be eating about three hours prior to kick-off.
“We’d like them to get as much rest as they can on Friday so having to go back to their work on the Friday morning isn’t ideal obviously. But that’s part and parcel of being a part-time footballer.
Updated fixture details for this weekend's Fourth Round ties have now been confirmed.
➡️ Read more: https://t.co/H793dgoxlN#ScottishCup pic.twitter.com/eJuJNcnDJt
— Scottish Cup (@ScottishCup) April 12, 2021
“It’s definitely a short gap – the shortest I’ve known in my years in football – but it’s an exciting week for us.
“The club hasn’t been at this stage of the competition for a while and we’re really looking forward to it.
“You just hope the guys recover between the two games and we can give it our best shot.
“It is a cliché but we won’t even be thinking about the cup until after our league game has been played. Then we’ll assess the walking wounded on Friday morning.
“And it’s not just the Saturday I have to think about. There’s a massive game against Cove on the Tuesday after. That has to come into consideration as well.”
The fatigue factor, and its implications, will be for those outside the club to speak about. There will be no defeatist talk on the crack of dawn coach heading west.
“We appreciate these are special circumstances,” said Petrie.
“It’s already been a unique season – look at Clyde and Dumbarton who have been Saturday-Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday-Tuesday-Thursday.
“It’s incredible the amount of games they’ve got to play – and getting results, I have to add.
“That shows you the resilience of footballers.
“It’s going to test us, there’s no doubt about that.
SCOTTISH CUP COUNTDOWN
Saturday will see us play in the last 16 of the Scottish Cup for only the 5th time in 50 years. In 1973 we beat Hamilton in a replay before falling to Dundee in the quarter finals at Links Park in front of our record attendance of 8,983. pic.twitter.com/M8n51yi7Jz
— Montrose FC (@MontroseFC) April 13, 2021
“We’re going to be facing a good Premiership side who are going well under Tommy (Wright).
“That task in itself, whatever the circumstances, would be a difficult one.
“The guys will love playing at a Premiership ground and playing a big Scottish Cup game.
“We’ll embrace it and enjoy it. The lads have got plenty of time to be tired after the season finishes. We’ve got nothing to lose and we’ll give it our best shot to try and cause a shock.
“This is what you dream about as a footballer at the lower levels.”
