Tranent goalkeeper Kelby Mason was confident of shootout success

Tranent twice came from a goal down against East Kilbride in the cup final on Sunday before ultimately triumphing on spot kicks.

Mason saved two of the Lowland League leaders’ efforts and highlighted the role that Matthew Thomson, the club’s director of football, played in the success.

The shotstopper, who lives in Wallyford, said: “There is more pressure on the player to score really.

“If they are 12 yards out and you are following the rules and you have to stay on your line, it is easier to score a penalty nowadays.

“All the pressure is on them but you can do a bit of research in terms of where they have gone previously and you go with your instinct.

“We have got a boy, Matty Thomson, who before all the games, he does a bit of research and lets us know a bit of information on the opponents and where they have gone before.

“That definitely helped.”

One of the match winning saves. Image: Alan Wilson

Sunday’s success meant that 25-year-old Mason, who started his career at Hearts, has added a Lowland League winners’ medal to the East of Scotland Football League (EoSFL) Premier Division title he clinched with the Foresters Park side in 2022.

The number one told Courier Sport on Wednesday morning that he believed in himself going into the shootout at Broadwood Stadium.

He said: “I have always been confident when it goes to a shootout.

“I was confident I would manage to save at least one.

“I always feel I have been able to get one.

“I have got a wee routine in my head.”

Hero Kelby Mason celebrates as Tranent win the Lowland League Cup. Image: Alan Wilson

The two sides had already met three times this season before the cup final.

Tranent had struck first with a 7-0 demolition of their rivals in the Scottish Cup.

East Kilbride hit back with a stunning comeback in the league, where Tranent led 2-0 with quarter of an hour to play but ended up losing 3-2.

Finally, just eight days earlier, East Kilbride had ended Tranent’s hopes in the South Challenge Cup when they won 2-1 in East Lothian in the semi-final.

Former Pinkie St Peter’s Primary School and Musselburgh Grammar School pupil Mason felt, along with Celtic B, East Kilbride were the best team they had played this term.

Goalkeeper Kelby Mason is mobbed by his team-mates after his penalty shoot-out heroics. Image: Alan Wilson

He struggled to put into words what it meant at the end of the game, when he denied former Stranraer and Auchinleck Talbot forward Keir Samson to win the tie.

He said: “I went a bit speechless.

“It does not settle in until the next day and you think what we have done.

“In that moment, the adrenaline is pumping and you want to get to your team-mates and celebrate.”