When a football club is experiencing financial difficulties one of the popular short solutions with regard to generating income is to embark on a run in the national cup competition.
For Dunfermline, a club afflicted by stories of late wage payments and unpaid bills which have often put their very existence in doubt, a home tie against Hamilton Accies in the last 16 of the Scottish Cup appeared to present a reasonably straightforward opportunity to progress into the quarter-finals of the competition.
Sadly for the troubled Pars it was not to be as their Lanarkshire visitors, who are currently clinging on to an unremarkable seventh place in the First Division, rattled home two early second-half goals to crush the Fifers’ hopes of a place in the quarter-finals draw.
It was a surprise to many that the game took place at all, the East End Park pitch having been affected by overnight frost.
But referee John Beaton gave the go-ahead in the wake of his lunchtime inspection, no doubt to the relief of the Dunfermline board who had slashed admission prices in the hope of attracting a sizeable crowd.
Hamilton appeared to adapt better to the playing surface in the early stages and should have taken the lead when Jon Routledge saw his close-range shot blocked on the line by Callum Morris following a blunder by goalkeeper Paul Gallacher.
Stevie May then missed a simple chance for Accies shortly after the interval but the pony-tailed frontman atoned for his indiscretion a few minutes later when he rattled in a superb 25-yarder which flew into the net via Gallacher’s crossbar.
Routledge sealed Hamilton’s progress to the last eight of the tournament with a firmly-struck drive from the edge of the penalty area with just over an hour played.
Saturday’s loss was Dunfermline’s third successive home defeat, so it is inevitable suggestions will be made that the club’s ongoing financial fragility is affecting matchday performances.
However, this was denied after the game by Dunfermline midfielder Stephen Husband.
He said: “I think there’s been a lot of negativity off the park but all credit to the boys the training’s been good, we’ve kept our heads down, kept working away and tried to be positive on the park.
“The off-field trauma might seem to have coincided with the fact that we’ve not been picking up any results lately but I don’t think that’s the case.”
Accies keeper Kevin Cuthbert saved well from Husband as Dunfermline staged a late rally but the majority of the home fans in the disappointingly-low crowd of 2,588 were resigned to defeat long before the final whistle.
Husband said: “That was a massive game for us a chance for us to get into the quarter-finals and possibly a crack at one of the bigger teams. We wanted to progress and get our name in the hat but it wasn’t to be.
“It’s a sore one to take. I think we played well in spells but there was no penetration. We couldn’t find the killer pass and we were a bit shy in front of goal.”