Accies 1 East Fife 1: Saturday, 2 December 2000

Here's another game that you can add to the long list of games which Accies should have won easily but which they nearly contrived to throw away altogether. As expected, Alex Eadie had been relegated to the bench following his poor run of form. Little did we know that he would turn out to be Accies most effective outfield player.

East Fife lined up with their player manager Rab Shannon at the back, experienced "journeyman" Ray McKinnon in midfield and teenage sensation Steve Ferguson partnering Steve Kerrigan up front. This will probably be perceived as a heinous insult, but I had never heard of any of the others and don't expect to hear of them much in the future.

From the very beginning, East Fife looked as if they were fired up for the game and they duly took the lead after 5 minutes. A corner from the left was swung in and headed towards the back post. With the Accies defence static, Steve Ferguson had time to finish his copy of The Dandy before thumping the ball high past Ian Macfarlane. You would think that this would serve as a wake-up call for the Accies defence, but they were very lucky not to concede a second goal five minutes later. A long ball split the Accies defence and Ian Macfarlane had to rush out of the area to clear. In doing so, he injured himself and had to be replaced by teenager Stewart Thomson. Young Stewart had recently made a name for himself with some heroics in a youth cup tie at Livingston, where he saved three penalties from Livvy players. In fact, he was only in the squad at all due to a bout of chickenpox suffered by regular deputy Graham Potter. Anyway, he came on and looked very wee in the goal, although the League Review Book gives his height at 5'11". The referee, to his credit, protected him well from any rough stuff from the East Fife team.

I would say that the first half was quite an even affair. East Fife certainly had their chances to increase their lead, but then Accies also had a few chances to equalise. The best of these fell to Davie McFarlane. His first was a great chance when some neat passing left him with a good shooting chance from about 10 yards. Sadly, he managed to sclaff the ball past the post. His second effort was more spectacular, a "Mark Caughey" style overhead kick which was well held by McCulloch in the East Fife goal.

So it was 1-0 to East Fife at half time and most of the Accies fans went inside to try to decipher the half time scores from a badly tuned telly under the stand!

Just as I was being ridiculed for suggesting that Ally Dawson would bring on Alex Eadie for the second half - it turned out that he did exactly that with Michael Moore being replaced. The Accies fans were stunned to see Eadie return after so many games in which he had contributed absolutely nothing. Well, I don't know if had been injured, or if this was actually a doppelganger, but the Alex Eadie who played the second half against East Fife was superb. He won everything in the air and his distribution on the ground was beyond reproach.

Accies dominated the second half and East Fife were restricted to breakaways as a result. That's not to say that they didn't have their chances. There were a couple of times when I was sure that they would score, but on each occasion they were foiled by the superb Thomson in the Accies goal. An equalise for Accies seemed inevitable, and it duly arrived after 65 minutes. Stuart Callaghan swung in a cross from the left and Alex Eadie headed strongly past the prone goalkeeper.

Accies kept up the pressure but just couldn't grab a second goal. Good chances fell to Allan Russell, Mark Nelson and Alex Eadie but they were all unable to score. The best chance of all fell to Martin Bonnar, whose thumping shot was superbly tipped over the bar for the last action of the game.

Incidentally, East Fife were quite a physical team and the referee (Mr. C Murray) was not slow to reach for his pocket book. Four of them were booked, with Ray McKinnon (formerly of Dundee United, Nottingham Forest but now really down on his luck!), being sent off following a body check on Davie McFarlane with 6 minutes to go. The Accies fans were really annoyed that the referee hauled back McFarlane. He had actually got away from McKinnon in a dangerous position when the referee blew his whistle.

All in all, this was a cracking game with lots of end to end action. If only Accies finishing had been better they would have won the game. As it is, that's now five consecutive draws and we're now 4 points behind Brechin and 6 behind Cowdenbeath.

We've got to start winning games or we'll never get out of this league.

Accies : Macfarlane (Thomson), Nelson, Callaghan, Hogg, Gaughan, Clark, Russell, Davidson (Vaugh), Moore (Eadie), McFarlane and Bonnar.

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