Brechin goalkeeper Graeme Smith on arriving at the wrong ground

Brechin goalkeeper Graeme Smith admits he 'has taken stick from his team-mates' after turning up at the wrong ground... for the second time in his career.

Smith, whose side were due to face Stenhousemuir at home last Saturday, says he realised something was wrong when the teams arriving at Ochilview - home of second division Stenny - were decked out in 'different tracksuits'.

Stenhousemuir share their ground with Stirling Albion, who were playing a league match against Montrose, and after a quick check the former Motherwell and Hibernian keeper realised his match was at Glebe Park in Brechin.

"I just turned up about quarter past one to see coloured tracksuits I wasn't expecting to see," Smith told Sky Sports News HQ.

"So I quickly phoned the wife to see who I was playing, she said, 'Stenny', which was good, and then I asked, 'where is it?' - and she said, 'Brechin. Get yourself up there'.

"The problem was two weeks prior to the game I started to arrange for a night out with my friends in Glasgow and thought Stenhousemuir away would be a good date, because it was half-an-hour from Glasgow.

"Within those two weeks I probably had umpteen opportunities to get it corrected with conversations or messages, and I just overlooked everything.

"It's just when I sat down I was listening to the radio, and I started to see a couple of different tracksuits at the stadium that I had the gut feeling, whoops I might have made a mistake here.

"I know preparation is key, it's important. Because of the age I am now, 32, I know that you can have a good warm-up and have a terrible game, and I know you can have a bad warm up and have a good game, so I know it's important.

"But the most important thing is I knew I was going to get there for kick-off. I had 10 minutes just to prepare myself, and I was quite calm about the whole thing.

"I just enjoyed the journey up. I suppose it was an extra hour-and-a-half I that wasn't expecting to make that day."

Bottom of the table Brechin lost 2-1 to promotion hopefuls Stenhousemuir, but Smith is dealing with the fall-out of his error as much as the result.

Brechin manager Darren Dods has still to discuss the incident, but Smith has already taken a ribbing from his team-mates.

Smith said: "I think the manager will get hold of me on Tuesday, that's the next time we meet up because we are part-time, but I suppose I've had it since the game finished it's kind of snowballed.

"Lucky enough for me I don't really use social media a lot, so I've been shielded from it. But it's one of those things. If you make a mistake like that you take it on the chin."

And the 32-year-old confirmed he has previous experience of arriving at the wrong venue, having made a similar mistake when playing in the Rangers youth team.

Smith said: "When I was younger I was playing for Rangers versus Celtic in a youth game and I told my dad, 'the game's at Rosyth', and my dad said, 'well that's in Fife, Graeme, are you sure it's not in Glasgow?'

"I said, 'no, it's Rosyth'. Again get to the ground and make a phone call and it's in Kilsyth. So my excuse is the names were quite similar, but that was a bit of a mad dash to get to that game as well."