Rovers Into Europe: Part One

Written by Club Historian, John Greer

Thirty years ago today, Raith Rovers embarked on their one and only (so far) adventure in European Football.

Tuesday 8th August 1995 
Raith Rovers 4 – 0 Gøtu Ítróttarfelag 

Crowd: 5,082 

Raith Rovers’ reward for winning the previous season’s League Cup was a UEFA Preliminary Round game against the Faroese Champions Gøtu Ítróttarfelag. Very little was known of the part-timers from the North Atlantic islands, other than the fact that their goalkeeper, Jens Martin Knudsen, was famous for wearing a white bobble hat. He caused a footballing sensation, securing a clean-sheet when the Faroe Islands beat Austria 1-0 in the islanders’ first ever competitive win in a UEFA 1992 qualifying match.  

Dair Gets It Started 

The Rovers started brightly and very soon had Gøtu on the back foot, but it took until the 21st minute before Raith made the breakthrough. Stevie McAnespie started the move, playing the ball forward to Stevie Crawford, who released Tony Rougier down the right wing. Rougier’s pace took him past two defenders before he hit a low cross that somehow evaded the diving Knudsen and Jason Dair had the easiest of tasks to put the Rovers 1-0 up. Before half-time Crawford hit a shot off Knudsen’s right-hand post, after a great one-touch flowing move.  

Rougier, Then McAnespie 

Two minutes into the second half, Julian Broddle went on an overlapping run down the left wing and his searching cross was headed home by Tony Rougier for the second goal. Rovers kept attacking with some very attractive football and the third goal came from a beautiful direct free-kick taken by Stephen McAnespie from the edge of the “D” in 72 minutes.  

Cameron Makes It Four 

The fourth goal for Rovers arrived in the 81st minute. Again, Julian Broddle played a good cross into the Gøtu penalty box which was headed down by substitute Ally Graham for Colin Cameron to hit home first time from the six-yard-box. This completed the scoring for the European debutants and set them up for the second leg two weeks later.  

The Raith Rovers’ players had done their bit to ensure that the 50 or so supporters intending to travel to the Toftir National Stadium would have a pleasant trip.  

Photos by Tony Fimister

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