Buckie Thistle 2 Accies 0: Scottish Cup Round 2: Saturday, 6 January 2001

FIRST HALF

Accies became the laughing stock of Scottish football once again with this humiliating defeat at the hands of Highland League side Buckie Thistle. A large contingent of Accies fans had made the 10 hour round trip (some of them even going as far as to stay overnight) but they were rewarded by their team's most pathetic display in years.

Make no mistake about it. Buckie won 2-0 but it could have been by the length of the A90 at the end. The simple reason for the home team's success was that they had the right attitude.

Quite simply, the home team won the game because they tried harder than their visitors. It could be argued, quite correctly, that Accies had the bulk of the play in the first half with the home team only making sporadic attacks. The only problem was that Accies failed to turn this territorial superiority into goals and paid the ultimate price. The only effort from Accies worth mentioning in the first half was a good header by Alex Eadie from a corner on the right. However, home 'keeper Michael Rae did well to turn the ball onto the crossbar. With hindsight, I think Accies would have gone on to win the game if Eadie's header had gone in.

So at half-time, the spirits of the Accies fans were reasonably high. Although a bit concerned at the lack of goals in the first half, we were quietly certain that Accies would go on to win the game.

More fool us.

SECOND HALF

The home side must have realised that, if they upped the tempo a bit, they could win the game. Because just a couple of minutes after half-time, they took the lead with a goal which should have been easily prevented. They won a corner on their left. When the cross came in, one of their attackers had a free header at the near post. Ian Macfarlane made a great save, but then the Accies defence did their famous impression of the Easter Island statues, allowing Levi Stephen to bundle the ball over the line at the second attempt.

Naturally, this outraged the Accies support, who immediately started to call for Ally Dawson's head.

This gave the home team a huge boost and they started to dominate the game. They began to win all the tackles and Accies really lost their composure. Things went very bad for Accies when the Highlanders doubled their lead after 62 minutes. Some sloppy midfield play by Accies allowed the ball to be passed out to Craig Stewart on the right , about 25 yards from goal. With a swivel of his generously proportioned backside, he cut inside the defender and curled a superb shot into Macfarlane's top corner.

This was the cue for absolute bedlam. The majority of the travelling Accies support walked en masse round to the nearest point they could get to where the Directors were sitting. The chants of "Watson, Die!" will doubtless have shocked the home fans, but they may not appreciate the way OUR club has been destroyed over the last few years.

Naturally, the football didn't improve after this. Accies woke up a wee bit, but didn't manage to take any of the several half chances which were created. Buckie had a couple of other chances to extend their lead but were denied by Ian Macfarlane.

When the final whistle came there was a mini pitch invasion by the delirious Buckie fans, while the Accies players sloped off the pitch in embarrassment. Some Accies scarves were thrown onto the pitch, to be deliberately trampled into the mud by young Buckie fans. After the final whistle, the Accies Directors had to endure intensive abuse from the Accies fans.

You can't feel any sympathy whatever for those who have systematically run down the club for their own profit. They should be run out of town, never to return.

IN CONCLUSION...

Where to begin. Accies were terrible in this game. It's all very well having a fair share of the possession. If you don't score goals, you lose matches. What was difficult to stomach was the lack of effort and passion from those in the red and white hoops.

I would suggest that some of them, such as Alex Eadie, Jim Sherry and Martin Bonnar should be released now. They will never be good enough for Accies. I refuse to believe that there aren't youth team players or even players in the juniors who aren't better than these guys.

I would heartily recommend to David McFarlane and Stuart Callaghan that they also leave the club now. These two guys are the best players we have and deserve to be with a better club than Accies.

But there is one thing that became clear from this game. Quite simply, Ally Dawson is not a football manager. I've met him once and he seemed like a decent enough guy. But a good football manager doesn't have to be a "nice guy". In fact that might be a bad thing. What I want in a football manager is a man-motivator, who's not scared to intimidate (or even threaten) his players to get the best out of them.

How this game made me yearn for the Billy McLaren era. Now there's a nutjob who knows how to manage. Get him back Accies, before the season's much older and the gap between ourselves and the league leaders is even greater.

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

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