Elgin City 0 Accies 2 Saturday: 12 August 2000

As we arrived for the first ever Scottish Football League match at Borough Briggs, there was an old R.A.F. plane looping the loop over the ground. It was probably the most entertaining bit of the day for the home supporters in the healthy crowd of 1552. This was my first visit to Elgin and I was pleased to see that the admission price was only £6.00 - a bargain compared with Accies ridiculous charge of £10.00.

Accies lined up without the injured pair of Jim Sherry and David McFarlane, although McFarlane was on the bench alongside Brian Vaugh, who was left out after a couple of poor performances in his first two games. To be honest, I didn't know any of the Elgin team and as it turned out none of them were really worth knowing.

Accies started quite well and took the lead after 12 minutes with a great chip from Mark Nelson into the postage stamp corner. Things got better a minute later when the Elgin No 6 Mike Morrison, who had already been booked, tripped an Accies player and received a couple of extra cards. Accies didn't score again before half time, but had several reasonable chances but were defied by a packed home defence and an agile goalkeeper. The best of these was a good header from Alex Eadie which was tipped over the bar. However, a bit of slackness at the back gave Elgin their best chance of the game but Ian McFarlane made a routine save and the Accies goal survived.

Ally Dawson replaced the subdued Alex Eadie with Davie McFarlane at half time. Accies continued to dominate the game with Elgin having very little of the possession. They did have a couple of long range efforts but there was nothing to cause the defence any alarm. Accies had the bulk of the play and, on another day, could have scored half a dozen. As it was, they had to settle for only one more goal, when Davie McFarlane ran onto a great through ball after 75 minutes and smashed it past the exposed goalkeeper. Michael Moore was unlucky not to score a third goal near the end but his shot hit the bar with the keeper rooted to the spot.

The game petered out a bit after that, although Chris Hillcoat came on for the final few minutes to a great ovation from the fans.

So a relatively easy victory for Accies, with two well taken goals and no new injury problems. Accies are second in the table, behind Cowdenbeath on goal difference.

After the game, Ally Dawson said : "We are just looking to get off to a good start, which we have done, and now we have set the standard we must keep improving. I don't feel the lads should be feeling any pressure playing in Division Three. After a wee bit of a hiccup on Tuesday night we've come back strongly and a 2-0 result is a good one to go back down the road with."

Accies : McFarlane, Clark, Nelson, Davidson (Hillcoat), Gaughan, Russell, Grant (Kelly), Bonnar, Eadie (McFarlane), Moore and Lynn.

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