For veteran keeper Derek Gaston, the wild weather at Forthbank on Saturday was all in a day’s work after his saves kept away the storm of another home defeat.
The clouds were in place over the Stirling skies for the entirety of the afternoon as an impressive Stranraer side peppered Gaston’s goal with chances.
Former Stirling Albion centurion Chris Aitken — now in the Stranraer dugout after being on the verge of securing the Forthbank hotseat in the summer — claimed “Christmas had come early” for the Binos as he escaped with their point.
Ex-Arbroath keeper Gaston was equal to the task of repelling the visitors until Mark Russell’s late goal looked to have found the vital breakthrough.
But Josh Kerr’s header with the last kick of the game secured an important point for the Binos — one which Gaston acknowledged was undeserved on the balance of play.
The 37-year-old said: “There are plenty of games during the season where the team plays well and maybe you don’t get a point or lose the game, so it can go the other way as well.
“We all know we didn’t play well today and were very fortunate to get a point and Stranraer will be gutted because they could have easily been three or four up quite easily.
“I did quite well and that’s what I’m there for; if the team isn’t perfoming to the standards they should be, then you need to rely on your keeper to come up with a few saves and by staying in it, that offered a platform to try and get something.
“I got a bit of PTSD from those years at Arbroath when I came out for the warm-up!
“It’s horrible not just for the keepers, but for all of the players in trying to judge where the ball is going to land and trajectories, difficult to catch the ball but thankfully today was more about blocks and making myself big.
“But I’ve played in those conditions more than most, so that probably helped a little today as well.”
For most of the afternoon, it looked likely to be a case of another step back after the positivity of the previous 4-2 win at Elgin City, but the late leveller means Stirling can take some better results into the trip to bottom dogs Forfar.
A positive outcome on the trip to Station Park can help the Binos increase the gap to the bottom, with positions from fifth to ninth in the division separated by just six points.
“If we go and get a result next week, then you’re saying it’s three games unbeaten and so many points out of nine and things are looking a bit rosy”, Gaston added.
“Managing to snatch that draw when we probably shouldn’t have is a good platform in terms of confidence and we might have taken four points from these two games if you had asked before the Elgin match.