Date	Saturday, 18 January 1947
Competition	Highland League
Fixture/Score	Ross County 2:0 Rothes
Venue	Victoria Park
Referee	Mr. T. Niven
Ross County
Manager	The Management Committee
Starting 11	1: Fred Newton, 2: DD Forsyth, 3: Frank McGrory, 4: ??? Raybould, 5: John Patience, 6: Robert Gollan, 7: Bob Shearer, 8: Jocky (SNR) Clark, 9: Charles (Chic) Ogilvie 1, 10: Alick Ferguson 1, 11: Tommy Urquhart
Bench
Attendance
Match Report	Report from the Ross-shire Journal. Ross County 2 Rothes 0 Good football was impossible in this game at Dingwall. The County won and deservedly so. They were beyond doubt the better team. It was hard on all the players and they must have felt glad when the final whistle blew. The pitch was soft and greasy and before five minutes of the game had gone, it became a veritable quagmire. A distinctive feature of the game was the refereeing. Mr Niven followed the game up and down the side of the field and signalled his decisions by a blast of his whistle and a gesture of his arms. Whether this was a new method he has adopted, or whether it was to escape a mud bath is not known. Ferguson was the first to test Bremner and it was well that the latter was in good form, for three times in rapid succession he had to stop hot shots from Clark and Ogilvie. He had a let off, however, when Ogilvie, picking up a forward pass from Clark, broke through on his own. With no one to beat but Bremner, he drove the ball wildly past. Immediately after Bremner cleverly saved a header by Ferguson. On several occasions Rothes broke away, but offside was their ruin, Forsyth, their centre forward, being at fault in his eagerness on numerous occasions. G. Meldrum, the diminutive outside left, was frequently prominent, but D. Forsyth gave him little rope. The mud was playing queer tricks with both ball and players. The sphere bounced in unanticipated directions and its progress was retarded according to the depth of the mire. The players slid and slithered in all directions. They were plastered with the mud and they could be seen constantly wiping it out of their eyes. Eventually a goal did come. Ferguson did the spade work, and giving Ogilvie a perfect pass, the latter slashed it past the helpless Bremner. Urquhart had a good opportunity but Bremner brought off a good save. Rothes retaliated, but Patience was very sound at centre-half. D. Meldrum tested Newton with a powerful drive, but the goalkeeper was giving nothing away. D. Forsyth had to retire with an ankle injury, and a man short the County came in for a spell of defence, which they survived. Resuming, Ross County at full strength again, continued to dominate the game. Ferguson had two scoring opportunities. Contacting a cross from Shearer with his head, the ball went narrowly over. He is still wondering how he missed the second. Rothes was not always on the defensive, and on one or two occasions their attacks looked dangerous. Newton was lucky when a shot from Smith struck the bottom of an upright and again when the ball crossed the goalmouth with nobody up to put it in. At the other end, Brown caught the ball on the goal line with Bremner out of position. Clark also failed on two occasions. First, getting away on his own, he shot the ball into Bremner’s hands; on the second, with an unprotected goal, he mistimed a perfect pass by Urquhart. Ross County supporters breathed easier when Ferguson eventually did score a second goal, although Gillies helped the ball on its way to the net. All over it was a poor game, but that was no fault of the players.