Raith Rovers 0 Alloa Athletic 1

Last updated : 29 April 2006 By Footymad Previewer

Alloa managed to avoid automatic relegation from the Second Division as they ground out a valuable victory over Raith Rovers at a sun-drenched Starks Park in their final league fixture of the season.

The Wasps will now take part in the end of season play-offs to determine at which level they will compete in 2006/7.

As promised, Raith manager Gordon Dalziel fielded his strongest side for what was effectively a meaningless end of season game as far as the Kirkcaldy side was concerned, but his players showed little appetite for the contest during a lack-lustre first half in which the visitors almost opened the scoring when a swerving free-kick from James Stevenson was touched on to the crossbar by Raith keeper Ally Brown.

The home side, who hadn't managed a serious attempt on goal before half-time, began the second half in more positive fashion and a powerful angular shot from substitute Neil Jablonski was headed clear by Chris Townsley.

Three bookings in a bad tempered six-minute period showed that both sets of players were taking things seriously, and it was the visitors who broke the deadlock in the 65th minute when striker Graeme Brown took adavantge of an uncharacteristic fumble by Brown to steer the ball into the empty net from 15 yards.

Brown almost made it 2-0 after 76 minutes when he shot narrowly wide when clean through but his earlier strike proved sufficient to secure a vital win for Allan Maitland's men.