Accies 2 Airdrie United 1: Tuesday, 11 March 2003

Scottish League Division 2, New Douglas Park, Hamilton

Tuesday, 11 March 2003

Report by Gilbert Mowat

Accies gave themselves a chance of staying in Division 2 with this hard fought victory against our shiny new rivals from North Lanarkshire. Manager Chris Hillcoat made a few changes to the team, with Sean Sweeney and Peter Flynn missing out. Ian Dobbins and Allan Russell replaced them. Brian McPhee was on the bench for the first time in a few weeks.

This was a tousy and competitive game. Referee Ian Brines wasn't slow to flash the yellow plastic either, with Martin Bonnar and Stuart Callaghan having their names taken in the first half, along with a couple of Airdrie players. Accies settled quite quickly and were unfortunate not to take the lead with a couple of decent early efforts. The best of these was a volley by Gareth Armstrong that certainly had speedboat owning Airdrie goalkeeper Mark McGeown beaten. It looked like a goal was coming, but unfortunately when it did arrive it was courtesy of Graham Potter's umpteenth howler of the season.

I know he has improved recently, but he was certainly at fault for the Airdrie goal after 21 minutes. Jerome Vareille hit a speculative cross-shot towards goal and it should have been collected by Potter with little trouble. Poor Graham fumbled the ball, and it broke to Liam McVey of Airdrie to nod home.

The goal was against the run of play and I feared that, as usually happens, the crowd would begin to get on the backs of the Accies men. Fortunately, an equaliser arrived within a couple of minutes - and an excellent goal it was too. Allan Russell was the architect with a sublime bit of skill on the edge of the area to get away from the lumbering Airdrie defender. He got to the byeline and his cross to the back post was met with a great volley by Gareth Armstrong. He hit the ball back across goal and low into the corner to send the home fans into raptures.

Accies played reasonably well until the interval, but I thought the visitors controlled the game for long spells in the early stages of the second half. The Accies defence were pinned back for what seemed like an eternity, although as has been pointed out on the message board, Graham Potter was little more than a spectator.

It was difficult for Accies to break out of this stranglehold, but when they did so after 64 minutes they did it in fine style. A great bit of inter-passing between Paul McDonald and Stuart Callaghan saw the wee guy set Callaghan loose on the left wing with a superb pass. With Gareth Armstrong and substitute Brian McPhee sprinting into the area, Cal hit the cross to the near post where it was rattled home by Armstrong.

Airdrie started to panic after this and one of their defenders got his second booking, this time for scything down Allan Russell. He wasn't too impressed at the inevitable red card and seemed to square up to the referee for a moment. He then left the park in a hurry as if he realised that he had crossed the line!

Airdrie hit the crossbar with a floated effort after an obvious foul on Graham Potter that the referee failed to penalise. Another Airdrie man missed the ball right in front of goal. They also had a couple of claims of handball in the penalty area, but I couldn't tell you if they were justified or not. Accies might have had a spot kick too, when Stuart Callaghan was brought down inside the area.

For their part, Accies played well on the break and could have increased their lead on a couple of occasions. But the 10 man Airdrie were unable to get back on terms and the points stayed at home.

Hamilton: Potter, Graham, McDonald, Kerr, Dobbins, Armstrong, Bonnar, Sherry, Russell, Graham (McPhee), Callaghan.

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