Bo'ness United boss Max Christie reveals extent of his injury crisis

Christie, 50, who has been in charge at Newtown Park since 2019 having previously managed Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic, Broxburn Athletic and Tranent Juniors, saw the BUs defeated 6-0 at home by East Kilbride on Saturday before crashing 4-0 at Civil Service Strollers on Tuesday night.

A quickfire trio of Lowland Football League matches for United over the past few days had also included a 2-2 draw at East Stirlingshire last Wednesday night.

"We’ve got nine players out – eight injuries and one with Covid – and for the last three games we’ve had no subs,” said Christie, whose team face Spartans at Ainslie Park on Saturday. “And we’re asking young boys to continually perform with no rest when playing midweek.

"What’s happened to us I’ve never seen before. We’ve got a big enough squad but to have nine boys out on Tuesday night, we can’t cope with that. But we’ve got to keep going.”

Tuesday’s loss at Strollers featured a nightmare start for Bo’ness as defender Michael Gemmell was shown a straight red card after just two minutes.

Trailing 1-0 at half-time, Bo’ness conceded a further three goals in a second half which also saw the BUs’ Lewis Hawkins sent off for a last man foul after 71 minutes before a Strollers player also got his marching orders four minutes later after receiving a second yellow card for handball.

"Michael landed on the boy and it’s been construed as a stamp,” Christie added. “But it wasn’t a stamp. There was no malice in it at all. He’s got to land somewhere and unfortunately he landed on the Civil player.

"It was in the middle of the park and there was massive hysteria from Strollers players. They were all shouting and screaming and next minute the ref’s got the red card out. The guy was rolling about, the