By Matt Meade
A PARS legend is the latest West Fifer claiming to have seen a big black cat.
Alex Edwards (pictured), who made 346 appearances for Dunfermline Athletic from 1962-71, said he saw a large feline, possibly a puma, while out walking his daughter's dog recently in Cairneyhill.
And the 1968 Scottish Cup winner told the Press, "I know what I saw."
Mr Edwards, of Hilton Road, was walking at Forrester Park Golf Club, Pitdinnie Road, at around 7.30am last week when he spotted the animal about 100 yards away through binoculars.
He said, "At first I thought it was a dog but not the way it was walking.
"I thought it was maybe one of (landowner) Bobby Forrester's big black poodles.
"It was just walking along before disappearing into long crops."
When asked what he had thought about previous reports in the Press of similar sightings he added, "I never believed them. I thought these guys were crackers.
"But it's been spotted a few times in Cairneyhill, I've heard.
"I saw something that wasn't a dog but a large cat bigger than a Labrador."
He waited around 20 minutes to see if the animal would reappear but caught no other sight of it. He called Mr Forrester to tell him about his experience. The landowner confirmed he had received the phone call.
Mr Edwards laughed, "He said the cows will kick it. He said he wasn't worried about his young calves because he has large dogs."
The sighting follows another recent report where a large cat was said to have been spotted by two witnesses in a housing estate in Lochore.
Bob Wallace, West Fife representative for Big Cats in Britain, said, "The Lochore sighting is one I can't understand - why it would be in a housing estate I don't know.
"The Cairneyhill sighting seems a lot more feasible."
He said there were fewer sightings in Devilla Forest, near Kincardine, due to noisy building works taking place there which may have scared any large cat away.
He also said a recent sighting at Pitreavie running track, reported in last week's Press, "surprised" him.
The Press received a call from David Laing, a coach at Pitreavie AAC, who said he believed that sighting was simply of a large black domestic cat that had been spotted regularly around the club.
