Airdrieonians 3, Accies 2: Saturday, 7 February 1998

A combination of a poor Accies defence, a bad referee and a good hat-trick from Steve Cooper led to another defeat for Accies at Broadwood today.

Accies started well and had two close things before we scored the opening goal. Firstly, Steven Renicks hit the bar with a well struck left foot shot and then Davie Craig forced a brilliant save from John Martin with a header that was going in at the back post. Then we took the lead with an excellent goal. Wolfie controlled the ball in midfield for Gary Clark, who laid it off for Renicks on the right wing. He hit a superb cross to the far post where Paul Ritchie cracked it home on the half volley. Ritchie made a big deal of his celebration in front of the fans, but it was his first goal for ages.

The Airdrie equaliser came just before half time and was very simple. Paul Jack hit a great cross from the right and Cooper bulleted the ball past McCondichie. We then had to endure the awful music Airdrie blast through the PA whenever they score.

Into the second half and twice within a few minutes, Accies should have taken the lead. Firstly, following an awful Airdrie free kick, the ball was squared for one of their players to shoot, he forgot to move and Accies swept the ball upfield. Paul Ritchie sent David McFarlane clean through, but his shot beat a very slow John Martin but rolled just wide of the post. The whole game turned shortly afterwards, when what seemed to be a perfectly good goal was disallowed. The ball broke to Paul Ritchie on the left hand side of the box with only Martin to beat. He squared it for McFarlane, who gleefully thumped it home. The linesman started to sprint upfield, having allowed the goal. However, the referee, who didn't have the benefit of the excellent angle provided to the linesman, decided to disallow the goal for offside. If this had happened in an old firm game, the referee's career would be over and private detectives would be on his tail on the way home from the game.

Obviously, this was the cue for Airdrie to take the lead, when Cooper fired home a poor shot from ioutside the box by one of his teammates. We didn't have much time to sulk about this, as Accies equalised shortly afterwards, when a corner broke to Steve Thomson to score with a left foot shot. An Accies fan was ejected after the celebrations, although I couldn't see what happened. The Airdrie steward at the scene definitely DID eat all the pies!

Just when we thought we were going to get our third point from Airdrie this season, Cooper scored again, a very simple goal from a cross from the right. John McQuade came on for Davie McFarlane, but unsurprisingly he didn't make any difference.

Most of the team played fairly well today, with a special mention to McCondichie (who was superb). On the other hand, John Martin looked extremely ropey, particularly at corners, but we never put him under any real pressure.

That's three calendar months without a win, which is absolutely relegation form. We have to be grateful for our good start to the season and the continued poor form of the teams below us for the fact that we will probably stay up. However, it will be close.

Accies : McCondichie, Thomson, Renicks, McEntegart, McKenzie, Craig, McFarlane (McQuade), McArthur, Ritchie, Clark and Cunnington.

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