Accies lined up without Nicky Henderson, who had defected to Clyde on the previous day. The fans were boosted, however, by the return of mercurial winger Jose Quitongo in the baggy No 11 shirt. Thistle had ex Accie Albert Craig in their team, along with veteran Derek McWilliams, who had joined from Clydebank.
To be honest, the first half was a real midfield battle, with only Thistle looking likely to score. They must have created four or five fruitless shooting opportunities in the first half. Accies only notable effort was a great volley by Eddie Cunnington which was well parried by Budinauckas in the Thistle goal. However, Accies did play a lot of good football in the first half, with Bill Davidson, Darren Henderson and Jose Quitongo particularly effective. It was a bit of a shock then, when Thistle took the lead five minutes before half time. Ross McLaren fouled needlessly when going for a high ball near the corner of the penalty box. Danny Lennon did a great job of floating the ball into the far corner, but it was a shot which Chris Reid should have been able to save comfortably. Instead, he was rooted to the spot as the ball sailed over his head. The comedy highlight of the half had to be the stupid booking handed out to Albert Craig. He was taking a throw-in right in front of the Accies supporters and managed to get into an argument with referee Colin Hardie about where it should be taken from. Rather than just accept the ruling from the ref, he continued to argue the toss until the mason eventually had had enough and produced a yellow card.
Just before half time, Steven Thomson deflected a cross back to Chris Reid, who picked the ball up. It not being a good day for Accies, Hardie immediately awarded Thistle an indirect free kick about 10 yards out. It came to nothing and Accies were relieved to reach half time only one goal behind.
Accies had a chance to regroup at half time and played a bit better in the second half. Time and again, Jose Quitongo took on what seemed to be the entire Thistle defence but nothing came of it. On one occasion, he skinned several players before setting up a reasonable shooting opportunity for Martin Bonnar. When Bonnar sclaffed his shot, Jose was seen to fall to the turf in utter despair. He's just too good for this team. The game opened out a bit more in the second half, although no more goals were produced.
The outcome of the game hinged on an incident with 20 minutes left. A long ball was played forward to Thistle forward Derek Lyle. He ran into the box, where he was challenged fairly and dispossessed by Ross McLaren. To our utter astonishment, the referee not only awarded a penalty to Thistle but red carded young McLaren. Even if it had been a foul, which I didn't think it was, Lyle wasn't denied a clear goalscoring opportunity as this was at the very edge of the penalty area, wide of the goal. At least Danny Lennon showed some compassion by blasting the ball high over the bar.
Accies played really well for the last 20 minutes with only 10 men. They continued to press Thistle back into their own half and restricted them to breakaways - none of which produced another goal. The referee added an extra 5 minutes of injury time - most of which would have been for the time when a Thistle player had to be stretchered off. It's possible that Thistle fans will complain about Accies playing on while their man was lying motionless on the turf. However, it wasn't a head injury and they were entitled to continue.
Near the end, the Thistle number 7 was substituted but took so long to trudge off the park that the referee decided he was time wasting and ran over to book him. Some of the conspiracy theorists in the Accies support thought that he had been booked in the first half and that a substitute should therefore not have been allowed to come on, but I must confess that I wasn't convinced of this.
So that was it. Thistle probably deserved to win (just), but the game was marred by a virtuoso display of poor refereeing by Mr Hardie. The wee ref was irritatingly officious and his decision making was poor. On one occasion, he over ruled a linesman to grant a corner to Thistle even though his assistant was about 6 feet away from the ball, indicating a goal kick. I don't know why some refs have to be the centre of attention. Isn't he getting any at home?
You couldn't fault the attitude and work rate of the Accies players today. The recent crises have fostered an excellent team spirit and you've got to feel for them. Darren Henderson produced one of his best performances of the season and Bill Davidson and Ian McAuley were superb. But the top man had to be Jose Quitongo. The wee guy was absolutely superb and deserved much more than he got from the game.
Accies : Reid, McLaren, Davidson, Gaughan, Thomson, Bonnar, McAulay (Crossley), N Henderson, McCormick (Crossley), Cunnington, and Quitongo
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