East Stirlingshire 0 Accies 0: Saturday, 26 August 2000

Accies dominated this game from start to finish but were undone by poor finishing, particularly by young Michael Moore. In addition, on many occasions Michael and (to a lesser extent) Allan Russell were caught offside by a well organised home defence.

The best chances of the first half fell to Moore, who was clean through on the home 'keeper. His first shot was straight at the goalie and (criminally) so was his second. Accies were the far better team in the first half and at one time had five consecutive corners. But for all their territorial advantage, they never really looked like scoring. 'Shire had a couple of chances themselves in the first half, but Ian McFarlane was in good form in the Accies goal. (Unfortunately, poor local knowledge of Falkirk meant that I missed the highlight of the match, when Jim Sherry hit the bar in the opening minutes.)

It was goalless at half time and that was the cue for the East Stirling announcer to leap into action. He talked (nonstop) from the moment the players left the field until the moment they returned. He took us through the scorers in all the other matches being played and ended up plugging Central FM. Could it be that he works for them?

Anyway, he shut up as the players resumed for the second half. The pattern of play was very similar to that of the first, with Accies doing most of the attacking and the home side doing most of the defending. Accies continued to lack any inspiration from midfield and the lacklustre Jim Sherry was replaced after an hour by Ryan Kelly. This made little difference and the fans made it clear that it was Gary Clark that they wanted to see.

Gary did come on with about 8 minutes remaining and matters certainly improved. I got the feeling that a goal was on its way, but time just ran out on Accies, with Michael Moore missing an easy chance at the death.

So Accies dropped two points today and have been caught by three of their challengers for the title. A combination of factors caused this draw - one of them being a much tighter park than Accies are used to. But that's just an excuse - we should have been good enough to beat East Stirlingshire today.

Accies : McFarlane, Nelson, Lynn, Davidson, Gaughan, Russell, Grant, Sherry, Bonnar, McFarlane and Moore.

- Read the fans' memories, or add your own, via this link.

- Please contact us if you have any information that will improve this page or if you spot any mistakes.

Images

Videos

Links and References