Management thoughts on a share of the spoils.

Posted on Sunday, December 11th, 2011

Mike says –

“When the referee ran onto the Academy pitch at 12.30 and kicked the football we had given him I turned to our coach Eric Ewing and said “He’s played football – this games got a chance” and so it turned out. At 12.30 the pitch was completely covered in snow so it was a brave decision by the official but by kick off time both goal-mouths and a large strip across the half-way line were green. It wasn’t easy for the players but the ball didn’t stick in the snow and it wasn’t dangerous so it was right that the game was played. 

Did the conditions help us or hinder us? All I know is before the kick off Sam and I ripped up our game plan and switched from a 4 5 1 formation to a more direct 4 4 2 with Donal Henretty moving from wide left to through the middle with Keith McLeod. The students stuck to one up and three in central midfield which decided how the game panned out. Stirling had more possession and more passing moves but we had more ball in the opposition box and created the more openings around goal. 

We ended up with two really good goals and too many chances spurned, probably because of the under-foot conditions. With several attempts at both ends missing the target neither keeper had as much to do as they should have with the quality of player on both sides. The draw was a fair result with the students happier with the outcome than ourselves. Neither Stirling nor ourselves however will be as happy as the attending Rab Paget of Whitehill or Stuart Rome and Gary Aitchison for that matter.”

Mike