Saturday spotlight 1st of February 2025

BSC mens first team | 1st of February

BSC Glasgow have for many years played in the fourth division in the West of Scotland football league. Although, if you have been following the team since their first season back in 2021, you will have noticed some very different faces this year.

The team that competed in the league from 2021 folded in January this year, due to a lack of players. It was a shame for the team to go the way they did. From their second season they on their day showcased the talent required to progress from the bottom division in the West of Scotland. The first team was the home of players like Callum McKenzie, who will be well remembered for his overhead kicks and is now playing at Broomhill FC in the lowland league, having scored quite consistently alongside players like Mathew Melvin who spent eight years of his youth at Partick Thistle.

The team certainly didn’t lack talent, but arguably structure and commitment all round. The long-prophesised fate of this team was that it would consist of only homegrown players, which might sound easy in theory, but is less so to maintain and improve in practice.

With any team of young adults, increasingly, outside commitments will start to interfere with consistency with attendance at training and matches. This is entirely understandable, and some would say an inevitable consequence of growing older, but with fast diminishing numbers every week at training, getting better as a unit season after season is a hard ask. But that’s just life, and as a club BSC has always been comprised of young people with promising things on their horizons. The majority of the squad was made up by young people in their early twenties studying at university or moving into their first full time job. That’s not to say this was the only factor explaining the demise of the club, but it is hard to ignore the fact of the matter, which is that over the years, players have dropped like flies.

Now you’re probably wondering, well who the hell would I be going to watch if I want to see the first team play?

Well, to answer that question, the first team has recently been taken over by Afghan United.

Afghan United is a charity which brings refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland together with local community organisations to improve access to education and encourage social integration. A member of the BSC first team suggested when news broke that the team was due to fold that the charity might be able to connect young people it works with in Glasgow with the team to fill the vacancies for the rest of the season.

Thanks to Afghan United, refugees and asylum seekers living in Glasgow are playing in BSC’s first team alongside those remaining from the original team from before, which isn’t many.

So, this is the team I went to watch on Saturday, 1:30 pm at Peterson Park.

The team have played two games since being taken over by the charity and it hasn’t been the most triumphant of starts, which perhaps was to be expected. A 7-1 loss at home to Kello Rovers and a 4-1 defeat away at St Peters sees them take 0 points since the break going into this game against Rossvale who sit 5th in the league, with BSC sitting bottom.

The first ten minutes was all Rossvale but BSC defended well and played some decent football at times to beat the press. Though twelve minutes in a lack of concentration lead to Rossvale getting their first of the game from a free header off the back of a corner. The opposition really started hounding the home team, becoming very hard to deal with, when only four minutes after the first goal, the Rossvale left winger beat two players inside the box and curled it into the far-right corner.

The home team grew into the game a bit more as the first half progressed, holding on to the ball with more skill, and creating a chance or two. Unfortunately, they were hit on the break and conceded an easy goal to Rossvale one minute before the break - a real shame as the home side had definitely grown into their skin a little towards the end of that first half.

The second half was a bit of a blur, as Rossvale hit early and didn’t stop until they scored another six goals, which finished the game at 9-0. For a group of guys who haven’t played together they played some nice football and put out all they had to give which you’ve got to respect. I also appreciated the constructive approach of the new coach who was positive and seemed to keep everyone’s spirits high.

Going forward, Afghan FC will assess if the team is viable, and if it is something worth investing in to keep going, as it is expensive to have a place in the West of Scotland league. If the team is kept on there is a pathway for every level of player at Bsc, there’s an amateur team playing in the Greater Glasgow Amateur league, possibly the first team in the West of Scotland, and then Broomhill FC currently playing in the lowland league is a pathway once again for youth players playing at BSC.

It may not work out that we have all three but even if we don’t, there is still many opportunities to carry football with you throughout your life at BSC Glasgow.