Accies 1 Forfar Athletic 2: Saturday, 2 November 2002

Scottish League Division 2, New Douglas Park, Hamilton

Saturday, 2 November 2002

Report by Gilbert Mowat

This week's Hamilton Advertiser laughably suggested that Accies were involved in the battle for promotion from Division 2. On the evidence of this match, it will be the relegation battle that will occupy their time. Despite the fact that the match ended in a narrow victory for the visitors, the truth of the matter is that Forfar were the better team by far.

Surprisingly, Chris Hillcoat opted to start the game with the same X1 that had defeated Cowdenbeath 7 days earlier, so this meant that Mark Nelson, Allan Russell and Eddie Cunnington were on the subs bench. Sadly, this also meant that Johnny Walker, Martin Bonnar and Mahdi Elfallah were still in the side, despite their poor performances this season. It's perhaps a bit early for Elfallah and he may well develop into a decent player given time, but at this stage in their careers it's hard to see how Walker and Bonnar will improve.

For it was the midfield dominance of the visitors that won them the game. That, and a couple of examples of very poor defending by Accies. The visitors came very close to taking the lead after only about 10 minutes when poor marking allowed Kevin Byers to thump a ferocious shot against Ian Macfarlane's right hand post from about 20 yards with Faldo clutching thin air.

It has to be said that the first half was a very tame affair with neither side looking like scoring. Accies created one effort on goal, when Brian McPhee's header was easily held by the Forfar goalie.

It was really in the second period that the visitors began to take control. Despite the good form shown by Ian Macfarlane, he was blameless when Forfar took the lead just after the hour. That fatal combination of neat passing from Forfar and slack marking by Accies allowed Kevin Byers another shooting chance from the left hand side of the penalty area. His curled effort was well parried by Faldo, but experienced striker Paul Tosh reacted more quickly that the static Accies defence and he hooked the ball home with little difficulty, sending the 31 visiting fans into raptures.

With Eddie Cunnington on for the "ineffective" Johnny Walker, there was a little bit more urgency shown by Accies after the goal. Things improved a little bit - and then they got much worse! Ironically, the second Forfar goal illustrated Accies ability to turn from attack to defence in the blink of an eye. For it was Eddie Cunnington, approaching the Forfar penalty area, who cut the ball back towards one of his team-mates. The pass went astray and, with most of the Accies team caught upfield, the ball was knocked forward to Barry Sellars who ran on to thump the ball gleefully past Faldo to seal the game.

The goal was met with what has become a bit of tradition at the stadium this season. I suppose we'll have to call it the "New Douglas Park Roar." Unfortunately, it's the sound caused by hundreds of seats emptying as the Accies fans headed for the exits. One fan near me called for Chris Hillcoat to resign. (I think that's more than a little bit unfair as well as being unrealistic. Who else would take the job at the moment, given the club owners?)

Those who left the game at that point missed Accies only bit of worthwhile play. Allan Russell, who came on as a sub after being missing since September last year, made an impressive run through the Forfar defence. He was fouled about 20 yards out. With the defence still sorting themselves out, Stuart Callaghan took the free kick quickly and found Brian McPhee unmarked about 10 yards out. The Bee's header found it's target and Accies were back in the game. Accies pushed for an equaliser but the best chance sadly fell to Martin Bonnar. He was found by a good ball from the right but, after controlling it, could only blast the ball high over the bar.

With that miss went Accies chance of getting anything out of the game.

I know that Chris Hillcoat doesn't really have any scope to sign new players as the club are desperate to reduce their wage bill rather than increase it. But it's hard to imagine that there aren't some out of contract part-timers out there who could improve this side. The number of part time teams that have outplayed Accies this season is frightening.

It's going to be a long hard season.

Macfarlane, Graham, McDonald (Russell 74), Dobbins, Sweeney, Elfallah, Bonnar, Walker (Cunnington 56), Armstrong (Keegans 67), McPhee, Callaghan

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