Scottish Championship REVIEW 28 Aug 2026: Josh Cooper scores three minutes after coming on, and Dunfermline take the Fife derby

Dunfermline Athletic beat Raith Rovers 1-0 at East End Park, and the goal arrived on 88 minutes from a substitute who had been on the pitch for three of them. Josh Cooper came on with Kian Corbally at 85 and scored at 88. It was the only goal of a derby that had gone through most of two halves without one, and it ends the run of four matches without a win that Neil Lennon had brought into the fixture.

Both managers had gone to their benches early and often. Raith Rovers made the first change of the night on 14 minutes, and Dougie Imrie ended up using five: Baird on 14, Scott Tiffoney at half-time, Scott Brown and Dylan Easton together on 60, and Kyle Turner on 83. Dunfermline answered with Andrew Tod on 62, Chris Kane and Charlie Gilmour on 69, and then the pair who decided it on 85. The bookings were Samuel Cleall-Harding on 30, Anton Dowds on 79 and Gilmour on 84.

Tiffoney's introduction was the one with a story attached: he had signed at Stark's Park in the week, a player Imrie said gave the squad a different dimension, and this was the derby he arrived into. Dowds, booked late, had scored his first goal for Raith Rovers earlier in the campaign. Dunfermline had been beaten 2-0 at Livingston in their previous match and knocked out of the Premier Sports Cup by Ross County before that, which is the run this ends.

The fixture carries more history than the division it sits in. Dunfermline won the Scottish Cup in 1961 and 1968, reached the final again in May 2026 and lost it 3-1 to Celtic, and hold a record 10-1 win over APOEL Nicosia in the Cup Winners' Cup of 1968. Raith Rovers are still defined by the 1994 League Cup final, drawn 2-2 with Celtic at Ibrox and won 6-5 on penalties, and the UEFA Cup tie against Bayern Munich that came with it, lost 4-1 on aggregate with the home leg played at Easter Road because Stark's Park did not then meet UEFA's requirements. Raith Rovers publish the all-time derby record themselves, and before tonight it stood at 57 wins for Dunfermline, 51 for Raith and 31 draws.