Accies 2 Dumbarton 0: Saturday, 16 December 2000

Accies got their faltering promotion campaign back in gear with this victory over Dumbarton. While the headlines were made by David McFarlane for his two fine goals, the unsung hero was goalkeeper Ian Macfarlane who made a couple of great saves to keep Dumbarton out of the game.

Manager Ally Dawson had made a couple of changes from the draw with East Fife two weeks earlier. Jim Sherry returned to the team after signing a contract until the end of the season. Alex Eadie started the game, with Michael Moore relegated to the bench.

It's got to be said that Dumbarton were the better team in the opening stages of the match. Ian Macfarlane had to be on his toes to make a fine diving save from a good header by a Dumbarton striker. In addition, they had a couple of other chances to score but were unable to hit the target. That's not to say that Accies didn't have their chances too. Davie McFarlane in particular was guilty of a bad miss from just a couple of yards out.

The teams were level at half time with Accies being booed off the park by the rightly unhappy home support.

Ally Dawson sprung a surprise at half time by replacing the subdued Bill Davidson with Allan Russell. But the Sons continued to impress with their lanky striker forcing another great save out of Macfarlane. A goal seemed inevitable, but we were pleasantly surprised that it came to Accies after 62 minutes.

Allan Russell released Alex Eadie down the right wing and his deep cross was volleyed low into the net by Davie McFarlane, to his obvious delight and relief. It was his first goal since 19th August! This relieved a lot of the stress from the Accies team and they started to play much better.

McFarlane sealed the game with 2 minutes left with another well taken goal. This one was very simple. Davie ran onto a long through ball, outpaced the last defender and calmly shot low past John Hillcoat in the Dumbarton goal.

While I would probably agree that Dumbarton deserved to take something from this match, I don't really care. The important thing was that Accies got the three points and finally ended their sequence of draws. It's just as well, with Brechin defeating Elgin to take over at the top of the table.

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

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