‘I could actually enjoy watching it’: Bo'ness United boss loves 6-0 home win over East Stirlingshire after recent run of league defeats

But it can also offer up some hugely enjoyable days, like for Bo’ness United manager Max Christie on Saturday as he watched his troops defeat East Stirlingshire 6-0 in a home Scottish Lowland Football League encounter.

"It’s just relief,” Christie told the Falkirk Herald. “The knot in your stomach tends to go and you say to yourself: ‘I can actually just sit and enjoy the game a wee bit’.

"That’s what happens when your team’s playing well and winning. You can enjoy it a bit more.”

Already leading 1-0 thanks to an early Alassan Jones goal, United went 2-0 up when Zander Miller netted a penalty awarded for East Stirlingshire trialist Kevin Onanu‘s last man foul on Lennon Walker. Onanu was sent off for the challenge.

Dan Watt made it 3-0 by half-time and the BUs wrapped things up after the interval with further strikes arriving from Tom Grant, a Miller penalty rebound after handball by Kenny Barr and number six by Jack Smith.

“We played well but I think it helped that East Stirling went down to 10 men,” Christie said. “ It was an uphill task for them.

"They were up against it but we passed the ball well and started to enjoy it.

"Whether it was our best performance of the season I don’t know but it was great to play well and win because we’ve had such a hard time.”

The last two victories for United – Saturday’s league thumping came seven days after a 1-0 Scottish Cup first round success at Cowdenbeath – follows a difficult run for the Newtown Park outfit when they lost four games in a row to East Kilbride, Tranent Juniors, The Spartans and Open Goal Broomhill.

So the 2022-23 campaign is proving to be a topsy-turvy one for Christie’s men.

"I think in that run of defeats that we were just making individual errors,” the gaffer added.

"They were all very, very tight games. East Kilbride beat us 1-0, Tranent beat us 2-0, Spartans beat us 2-0 and Open Goal beat us 3-2.

"All those games could have gone either way with the first goal being really important.

"It was fine lines, fine margins but we ultimately didn’t win them.

"Cowdenbeath was a very tough game in the Scottish Cup so to beat them 1-0 was good and to win again on Saturday was encouraging.”

Although Christie hasn’t set any direct goal in terms of a finishing position for United in this term’s Lowland League, he has a very definite opinion on how he wants them to go about their business during games.

The gaffer said that the next two league outings for the BUs – at home to Civil Service Strollers on Wednesday and away to Berwick Rangers this Saturday – both looked like tough fixtures.

"We haven’t got any targets,” he said. “I’m not telling the players: ‘You need to finish fourth or whatever’.

"It’s just trying to get the boys fit, trying to get them in an environment where they can relax and play and march on.

"The games are coming thick and fast and they’re tough, tough games.”