The rousing atmosphere of a cup final is often followed by a period of quiet reflection.
Allan Smith had more to think about than most after scoring for Dunfermline Athletic in their Scottish FA Youth Cup final defeat by Celtic on Wednesday night; the 19-year-old offering the Fife side hope when he made it 2-1, only for the significance of his goal to change not long after the 3-1 defeat at Hampden.
Smith has now scored at both the home of Scottish football and Scottish rugby, his earlier guise as a player for Selkirk Youths allowing him to score a try at Murrayfield in a youth tournament. It seems unfortunate to note that the teenager ended up on the losing side on both of those occasions.
"I enjoyed my goal and that is me done it at both national stadiums and there cannot be too many 19 year olds who have done that," said the Dunfermline striker. "Alex Harris did it when he scored for Hibs recently in their [Scottish Cup] semi-final but I am not sure who else has.
"I scored a try against Stirling County in the Scottish Cup and there is evidence on YouTube of it. However, we got pumped by them in the end."
Smith's mind was back in the present yesterday when he returned to training with Dunfermline's first team ahead of a match with Airdrie United which could secure the club's place in the Irn-Bru First Division for next season. "Keeping Dunfermline up would make up for losing the final, we simply have to keep the club up."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article