Scottish Cup match report

Posted on Sunday, January 11th, 2009

After watching the brief highlights last night on Sportscene and reading the papers it confirmed what we thought – we had given Airdrie a big fright and on anotehr day would have scored the equaliser and brought them back to City Park. 

After an initial flurry the first hald was mostly Airdrie – the game plan had been to play defensively, conserving energy so we would be able to complete in the final quarter against the full timers.  Midway through the half Di Giacomo scored after great interplay with Lynch.  They could have gone two ahead but Chris pulled off a flying save.  When it looked like we would go in only one behind the windy and wet conditions caused problems for Chris on a cross bvall and Lynch tapped home – as the photo in the Sunday Mail shows Chris did have one hand on the ball but it wasnt enough.  We changed to 4 4 2 in the second half and to the delight our a fantastic following of 450 made a real game of it.  A couple of chances came and went before Gavin drove home via the keepers legs. 

Game on as the Spartans Army got right behind the team.  Donal was through but the surface water held up the ball.  The conditions were worsening but when it got to the hour mark we realised the referee would play on.  It certainly was much worse than Annan had been a few months ago when the game was postponed.  We continued to push and then the critical moment…a through ball held up and it appeared that Keith had got there just before their ‘keeper before tapping it into the net.  The goal was disallowed.  We had a couple of corners in the dying minutes but the ball just wouldnt fall kindly.  The players had played magnificantly in the second half cheerd on by the fans.  Dan and Stewart certainly said it was the loudest our fans had ever been including away at St Mirren.  The players left to a standing ovation from both sets of supporters….just one piece of advice….if you ever get a chance to watch a big game involving your favourite team from behind a plastic window don’t!  The 12 of us tried to make the most of it watching our fans in the other side of the stadium….even with Jimmy going through his entire reportoire of jokes.  He did at least win £200 in the half time 50:50 draw. Team: Flockhart, O’Donnell, Fowlie (Hoskins 83), Gerrard, Archibald, Walker (Kader 80), McLeod, Manson (Devlin 88), Henretty, Malin, King  Subs not used: Smart, Snodgrass 

Action photos to come later