Dunfermline City Hockey Club hosted their 2nd annual Community Shield at Queen Anne on Saturday. Along with City, the other teams on the day came from Falkirk, Stirling, Dundee Monarchs and Dundee Wanderers.

City opened the tournament against Stirling and like the previous encounters between both teams in earlier pre-season games, this was another tough game, however, a late goal from David Miller saw City gain victory.

With a good mix of teams on show from National to East Leagues, each game was a close encounter with each team capable of beating each other.  City then played last year’s winners Monarchs and were unlucky to go down 3-2, however, a 0-0 draw against Falkirk in City’s 3rd game kept them in contention.

With Falkirk defeating Monarchs in their last game, this opened the door for City who needed to win their last game against Wanderers to stand any chance of winning.  With this in mind City started well playing some good hockey with goals from Alan Green and Neil Innes.  This  secured a 2-0 win to move 2 points clear with the final game between Monarchs and Stirling still to go.

Monarchs needed to beat Stirling to retain the Community Shield, however, Stirling (who had still to win a game) were no pushovers and showed why they are a National League team to defeat Monarchs 2-1.

This result gave City the win by 1 point and claim their first silverware of the season.  As part of the Sports for all Festival, Dunfermline City would like to thank Elaine Stuart from Carnegie Dunfermline Trust and Noel Grimshaw from the Sports Council who came up to present the Community Shield.

It was also a good day for City players Brent Walker, Neil Fleming and David Tanton who all successfully obtained their umpiring ‘C’ badge.

City continue their preparation for the new season on Saturday with their 1st team playing Kinross 1s and the newly formed City 2nd team playing their first ever fixture against Edinburgh Colts.