We had hardly drawn breath after Mark Whyte’s glorious winner at East End park and the new season was upon us.

Everyone at Prestonfield was fired up and ready to defend the league and the junior cup. And of course, we had the ‘big’ Scottish to win with a run in Europe to follow!!

New faces arrived and old ones left. We thought we’d seen the last of Whyte and Gallagher but you can’t keep old dogs down and while Gall quickly returned to the fray, Mark belatedly made a cameo appearance in the final league game of the season to have one last tussle with his nemesis from Bathgate, Willie Wilson.

With a strong nucleus of players from the cup winning side and some useful looking additions, Rose started the defence of their League Cup with a tough away tie at Bonnyrigg. After delivering a sound 5-1 hammering - despite Donnelly’s red card in the first 10 minutes - the players and supporters were jubilant. Rose had shown on day 1 that they’d be the team to beat.

Broxburn, Pumpherston, Dalkeith and Edinburgh were all soundly beaten as the Rose marched effortlessly through their section before dispatching Fauldhouse 3-0 in the semi final to set up a clash against Newtongrange in the final.

Lots of goals scored – the boys had taken up where they left off and life as a Rose fan could scarcely be better.