Millen would not miss

Total confidence from Pars 18 year old hero

Eighteen year old Ross Millen was the Pars hero on Saturday when his 83rd minute penalty conversion sent the play off semi final against eight man Forfar into extra time. He was elated when he addressed the press after the match, charming them with his youthful confidence despite his limited previous dealings with the media. Ross revealed that he was cool about the responsibility:-

"I just felt calm, there was no pressure on me - no one is going to shoot me." And then when followed up by a concern over how unthinkable the consequences of failing from the spot might be, Ross simply replied: - "I wouldn't have missed that!"

Stephen Husband had sent Dunfermline's first half penalty past the post so there was no argument when the youngster grabbed the opportunity to stick the ball in the net.

"Hubby took the last one and obviously he had missed it. I just thought just give me the ball and I will take the next one. There were no arguments, I was taking it and that was it."

When it was pointed out that missing the second penalty of the match could have sent the Fife club crashing in the third tier of Scottish football, Ross just replied:- "I have not missed one so I am alright!"

Like most of the players on the pitch, all of whom were older than him, Ross had not experienced such a game of football and could only recall a SFA Youth cup time against St Mirren that went to extra time as being such a cliffhanger:-

"I think we thoroughly deserved it. It gives us confidence to go into the next game and gets the team spirit up. It is back to 0-0 but hopefully over the two games we can do the business."

That business complements the off the field business recovery actions and Ross termed the Alloa play off as massive:-

"The Club is in administration and we need to do us much as we can for everybody. All the older ones - John Potter, Craig Dargo and Andy Geggan have been brilliant with us. They have given us a bit of freedom to go and play and we do that."

The young player dismissed the perfectly justifiable suggestion that the pressure might be lying heavily on the shoulders of such young players:-

"There is no pressure on us, we just go out and play our football. It is up to the administrator what they do. We have played football from the start and we are just going to keep doing that. There is a lot of young ones now in the first team who have been playing together in the Under 20s and we all know each other well."

Starting the second leg 3-1 down to Forfar was bad enough but to lose anther goal just six minutes into the match was not the ideal way to go about rescuing the imminent threat to their First Division status:-

"That's just our luck this season but hopefully now our luck has changed and can keep going. We just need to keep our heads down now and hopefully do better than we did in the first game against Forfar. When it went to 4-1 there was another 84 minutes of the game to go but Potts always gives us confidence to go and play."

Ross has a well known father in that seasoned campaigner Andy Millen and his son admitted that he just has to accept that he is on his back all the time:-

"He gives me praise when I warrant it and gives me a kick up the backside when I need one."