St Mirren 1 Accies 1: Scottish Cup 3rd Round: 23 January 1999

Accies went into this game without the suspended pair of Ian McAulay and Gary Wales

Although I had just been fleeced for £12, I have to say that I was quite impressed by the new stand which is used for visiting supporters at Love Street. Apparently, there are indoor training facilities underneath which are hired out when they're not being used by St Mirren - bringing a very useful £80,000 per annum into the club's coffers. The Accies fans were gathered into one of the sections of the stand and this led to an excellent atmosphere with plenty of good banter going around. As usual, the singing was directed at those responsible for our declining fortunes - it would have been nice if there had been more encouragement for the team. The St Mirren fans were almost silent throughout the whole game.

The football itself was of a very low standard and it seemed to me that most of the good passing was from the home team. Their best move of the match led to their goal after only 5 minutes. Junior Mendes (recently recalled from a loan period with the mighty Carlisle) was sent clear on goal and he made a good job of rounding John Hillcoat before scoring. The best efforts Accies had in the first half came from, believe it or not, Paul McKenzie, who has never scored for the first team. Anyway, Wolfie was very unlucky as he had two efforts cleared off the line.

Steve McCormick replaced the ineffective Bill Davidson at half time and scorned Accies best chance of the match so far when he shot narrowly wide from a good position on the left. It has to be said that Accies came more into the game in the second half, although they never really looked like scoring. Mind you, neither did St Mirren, with their front pairing of the ancient Tom Brown and the chunky Mark Yardley (he put the "cow" in Cowdenbeath) looking a bit sluggish.

Midway through the second half, Colin Miller replaced Tommy Tait (looking out of his depth at this level) with Gary Clark and Ross McLaren also came on for Neil Berry. This improved matters and it was right at the death that Accies scored. The ball was crossed in from the right and, when it was headed out to the edge of the box, commercial manager Gary Clark was there to volley home an absolute belter into the roof of the net. This was the cue for absolute bedlam and I have to thank regular correspondent David Ogg and his son Calum for preventing me from falling headfirst down the stand.

St Mirren perked up after this and John Hillcoat had to make a couple of good saves before the final whistle.

The replay will be at Firhill on Tuesday, 2nd February.

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