Scottish League Division 2, New Douglas Park, Hamilton
Saturday, 5 April 2003
Accies 0
Attendance 1247
Stenhousemuir 1
Crawford 65
Report by Gilbert Mowat
In future years, no-one will remember this game. It will just be recorded as yet another home defeat in a very disappointing season. In fact, in the future perhaps people won't say something boring is like "watching paint dry." Maybe they'll say it was like "watching Hamilton Accies play Stenhousemuir in April 2003."
For this was one of the most tedious matches that anyone can have seen. Sadly that will include the hordes of children from local schools who took up the offer of free tickets from the club. Not many of them will be pestering their parents to get taken back to NDP after this showing.
In truth, both teams were honking. Stenhousemuir were certainly no better than Accies but they did have the good fortune to score the only goal of the game - a low trundler of a shot from 10 yards by substitute Crawford that should have been gathered easily by Graham Potter. It was a terrible goal but it was fitting that such a poor game should be decided in this way.
Accies were very poor. Chris Hillcoat decided to leave two of his more talented players, Stuart Callaghan and Allan Russell on the bench, presumably because they didn't fit into his tactical plan. Sadly, those "tactics" seemed to consist of lumping the ball up to big Ally Graham to knock down to people like Brian McPhee and Gareth Armstrong. While this did work sometimes, the fact that Accies did not have a single shot on target in the entire game speaks volumes.
Hillcoat played the full 90 minutes, which will be a surprise to anyone who thought he had retired a couple of times before. To be honest, I don't think the gamble worked. The only attempt on goal worthy of the name came near the end of the match when substitute Eddie Cunnington fired the ball just wide of the post. By that time, of course, Accies fans were leaving in droves and for once I could sympathise with that action.
That this was a missed opportunity to climb the table will only make the result more painful. Had Accies won the game, they would have climbed to only 6 points behind second placed Brechin, with City still to visit Hamilton. As it is, results elsewhere mean that we are only 3 points ahead of 9th placed Dumbarton.
With 5 games remaining, it is now clear that we won't be in Division 1 next term. Whether we stay where we are or get sucked into the bottom league remains to be seen.
It's easy to see why everyone else dislikes Stenhousemuir. I don't have anything in particular against the club, but in manager John McVeigh they have one of the most irritating bosses around. Him and his wee sidekick spent most of the game bawling and shouting at everyone and everything and they got up people's noses. Right at the end, he flicked the ball away from Chris Hillcoat in a blatant and petulant bit of timewasting.
Finally, the game was refereed in typical manner by the diminutive balding figure of Brian Cassidy. Anyone who has followed Accies in recent years will know what that means. He was pernickity, interfering and inconsistent and the flow of the game suffered as a result. For one first half incident alone, he should be removed from the Grade 1 list. Gareth Armstrong went up for a header with a Stenhousemuir player and ended up on the ground nursing an obvious head injury. Cassidy should have stopped the game immediately but decided against it. He should not have taken that risk.
So yet another dismal home defeat for Accies. The remainder of the season promises to be a tense 5 weeks and if they continue to play this way it will certainly not have a happy ending.
Potter , Graham (Russell), McDonald (Callaghan), Dobbins, Hillcoat, McDermott, Armstrong, Bonnar, Sherry, Graham (Cunnington), McPhee.
© Accies World 2003
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