News

The curtain fell on Cove Rangers’ sixth SPFL season in the Lanarkshire sunshine on Saturday evening, the goalless draw against Airdrieonians enough for the hosts to prevail in the Championship playoff final.

It was a disappointing conclusion to our longest campaign since promotion in 2019, the side having played forty-eight matches across the various competitions the length and breadth of the country.

It all began with a 5-0 hammering at the hands of Spartans in the Premier Sports Cup and it was not until the final group fixture, a 2-1 victory at Dunfermline, that we picked up our first win of the season.

The League One campaign kicked-off the following weekend with a home defeat to Annan Athletic, and further losses to Queen of the South and Stenhousemuir followed alongside a draw against Dumbarton.

Four games in, we found ourselves at the foot of the table, but Mitch Megginson netted at home to Montrose to earn a much-needed three points to lift the gloom. The following week saw a Challenge Cup exit at East Kilbride, but a Blair Yule rocket contributed to a 3-1 success at Kelty, and Adam Emslie scored to earn a point in Inverness.

Arbroath, struggling up until then, won 4-2 at Balmoral in late September, but October was to be a memorable month. The team reeled off four straight wins and clean sheets, seeing off Alloa, Queen of the South, Montrose and Dumbarton to earn Paul Hartley and Mitch Megginson the Manager and Player awards.

It was becoming clear it was going to be a hugely competitive division with virtually every side having topped the table, and the tight nature of the league became apparent as we lost the next two. A Scottish Cup victory over Caley Thistle was followed by another defeat, the worst performance of the season as Stenhousemuir travelled north to win 3-0.

A couple of draws were followed by a 2-0 triumph over Alloa and then an outstanding performance in the highlands to round off 2024 as Inverness were swept aside by four goals to one.

The new year opened with a loss in Dumfries, a cup win over Forfar and another superb away display to secure a 4-0 stroll at Stenhousemuir. Late goals from Megginson and Ryan Harrington earned a massive win against Arbroath, and after exiting the Scottish Cup at Livingston, we had a run of just one defeat in six to solidify our place in the playoff positions.

That ended with a 4-0 demolition of Kelty Hearts, Mitch Megginson snatching his 100^th goal since we joined the SPFL.

There was then a poor sequence which garnered just two points from four matches, but we got back on track at Dumbarton, Dylan Lobban netting the first goals of his professional career. That game was also notable for the absence of Connor Scully, the first he had failed to start in over two years, ending a run of ninety-three games.

We finished off the regular League One season unbeaten from there, the 2-2 draw with Kelty at the start of the month securing the playoffs, with the 4-2 victory at Annan on the final afternoon clinching second.

The boys dug deep to see off on-form Queen of the South in the semi-final and came agonisingly close to a Championship return, losing narrowly to Airdrieonians over the two legs.

Frustration at the end, but the whole squad and management worked hard over a gruelling campaign, one which threw up a host of milestones both for the team and various individuals.

In terms of League One, only our two title-winning seasons produced better totals for wins, points, and goals for and against. The second place we recorded was the fourth top-three finish in our six years in the SPFL, and during the campaign the team broke the 300 barrier both in terms of overall points and goals scored since promotion in 2019.

The four successive clean sheets we racked-up in the autumn matched our best such sequence in the leagues, and the club reached the fifth round of the Scottish Cup for the second year in a row, matching the furthest we have gone in the competition.

Mitch Megginson celebrated two centuries: 100 career goals in Scottish League football as well as 100 for Cove Rangers in our SPFL era. Both he and Fraser Fyvie were named in the PFA Scotland team of the year.

Mitch was top scorer again – the fourth time in six seasons – and also claimed the League One crown alongside Kelty’s Ross Cunningham.

The win at Inverness in December saw Paul Hartley chalk up his 200^th game as Cove Rangers boss and his 500^th overall in football management.

Connor Scully set his remarkable benchmark, starting ninety-three straight matches from March 2023 until this April, and Mikey Doyle is closing in on that, having made sixty-four successive starts. He played every minute of the 2024-25 season, a total of 4,320, and has been on the pitch throughout our last sixty-one games since the cup-tie at Kilmarnock in February 2024, taking his tally to 5,490 minutes.

Ryan Harrington was also an ever-present this season, he and Mikey joining Connor, Stuart McKenzie and Blair Yule as the only players to have achieved that since we joined the SPFL.

Everyone at the club can now enjoy a short break – we look forward to welcoming you back to Balmoral Stadium for 2025-26!

Article Copyright © 2025. Permission to use quotations from this article online is only granted subject to appropriate source credit and to www.coverangersfc.com