Cowdenbeath 0 Accies 1: Tuesday, 4 March 2003

Scottish League Division 2, Central Park, Cowdenbeath

Tuesday, 4 March 2003

Report by Gilbert Mowat

This was a game that showed that Accies can stay in Division 2. They really dominated the game throughout and, but for the intervention of the woodwork and some comedy finishing from Allan Russell, would have given the Fifers the caning they deserved.

I was warned by a fellow fan at the game that if I wrote a glowing appreciation of Accies he would vomit over his keyboard and never speak to me again. I'm not about to do that, but they were clearly in the mood for the game and were better than Cowdenbeath in every department. Not that that's saying much.

Accies lined up with Allan Russell returning to the starting X1 in place of Gareth Armstrong. Russell provided the main talking point of the first half with an astonishing miss right in front of the goal. Martin Bonnar did really well to win possession at the edge of the area and bore down on the home 'keeper. Rather than have a go at the goal himself, he elected to square the ball to the unmarked Russell instead. Somehow, from a position right in front of the open goal and only a couple of yards out, Russell managed to scoop the ball up and over the crossbar. Forget the Ryan Giggs miss against Arsenal recently, forget Wale Kwick Ajet's career ending blunder at Hampden in September 2001. This was right up there with Peter Van Vossen's famous effort at Parkhead and Ronnie Rozenthal's bloomer for Liverpool.

The Accies fans were stunned but the home fans were wetting themselves. (A sensible choice under any circumstances, given the apocalyptic state of the cludgies at Central Park.) This miss set the tone for the rest of the half, with Accies doing reasonably well outside the area but definitely unable to get the ball on target.

It was amusing to listen to the comments made by the hugely embittered home fans during the game. Diminutive referee John Gilmour was the main target for their wrath. I thought he controlled the game very well and the yellow cards he gave to the Accies men were correct. But the home fans kept bawling about "effin' west Coast bias" and complained that Accies were fouling their heroes all the time. Codswallop. The Accies men competed well - no more or less than that. Of course, some Accies fans started to wind up the home fans with replies about "Fife bias" and so on, but I don't think they went down too well.

If Accies had been the better team in the first half, they really showed in the second period that there truly was a gulf between the sides. They struck the woodwork on no fewer than three occasions:-

• • Big Ally Graham clipped the bar with a sweetly struck left footed free kick. (I had to rub my eyes after that one!)

  • Allan Russell broke clear on the right side of a congested penalty area and thumped the ball off the foot of the post with the 'keeper beaten

• Martin Bonnar got his head to a great Allan Russell cross but his 12 yard header struck the junction of the bar and post

So of course the game was drifting towards a draw and we started to drift towards the exit. Then it happened. At last Accies got things right and Ally Graham chested the ball down for substitute Gareth Armstrong to drill the ball low into the corner from the edge of the area. Jubilation! Like so many other things in life, a long period of frustration was followed by an intense, if brief, feeling of relief.

Naturally, the arrival of the goal meant that it was time for the Accies defence to go into "Headless Chicken" mode for a couple of minutes and the Fifers came closer to scoring than they had all night. But the defence somehow held firm and the points were ours.

Hamilton: Potter, Alisdair Graham, Kerr, Sweeney, McDonald, Bonnar, Sherry, Flynn (Armstrong), Callaghan, Alistair S Graham, Russell. Subs: Dobbins, Armstrong, Walker, Arbuckle, McFarlane.

© AcciesWorld 2003

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