THE UNIVERSITY of Stirling men’s football team won their first league title since 2013 this week.

The team defeated Nottingham Trent University 1-0 to become BUCS Premier North champions.

With Stirling starting the match two points behind their opponents, it was a winner-takes-all clash with very little chances created by either side in the first half and defences very much in control.

Nottingham Trent knew a draw would hand them the title so the second half continued in a similar vein before Stirling brought on the attacking reinforcements to ramp up the pressure in the final quarter.

The approach began bearing fruit with more chances coming the way of Stirling, the best of which came to substitute Tom Cowley who hit the bar with a powerful strike.

Just as time was running out, a strong run into the box by Louis Kennedy three minutes from time created space for Kieran Hall whose layoff was finished by Craig Brown.

The team held their nerve in the final minutes before the final whistle sparked wild celebrations from the newly-crowned champions.

Chris Geddes, University of Stirling head football coach, said: “We went all-out attack – we had every attacker we had on (the field) – and thankfully Kieran’s flipped one round the corner and Craig’s put it away so I’m just really happy for the players.

“These things don’t happy very often to footballers and if you’re involved in university football this is massive. For us to be winning the league against some of the top university teams in the north of Britain is great and now we go with confidence into the British Championships and hopefully take the form into that.

Elated captain Angus Mailer added: “It’s a brilliant feeling. Over the course of the ten games I think the boys thoroughly deserved to win.

“We had to go for it. I said to the boys at half-time to be patient and we’ll get our chance and luckily we took it.”