Accies 4 Stirling Albion 1: Tuesday. 27 July 2004

Hamilton Accies 4 Stirling Albion 1

Tuesday. 27 July 2004

New Douglas Park, Hamilton

Accies cantered to a win against an under strength Stirling side in the evening sunshine at New Douglas Park. With manager Allan Maitland making no fewer than 8 half time substitutions, only Pat Keogh and Brian Carrigan of the first team squad did not feature in the game. It was hard therefore to work out exactly which X1 the manager would nominate as his top team. In previous years, you would have been hard pushed to select 18 players for Accies first team squad but this season they look pretty strong.

Accies didn't waste much time in taking charge and Mark Corcoran took advantage with two well taken goals in the first half. Both were the product of sloppy defending by the visitors but he did well to convert the chances nonetheless. Stevie Convery played the first half and brought a couple of good saves out of the visiting goalkeeper, who was clearly the man of the match. Accies must have had four or five efforts cleared off the line during the game, such was the level of their superiority.

After the eight half time substitutions, it was interesting to see Derek Ferguson get his first run out for many months. He looked to be in reasonable form and controlled the midfield area fairly well. The visitors pulled a goal back just after the hour when one of their forwards ran through the right side of defence to net past Raymond Jellema. Accies came back into it and, after being denied by several good saves and goalline clearances, increased their lead when Iain Fyfe knocked in a superb Ricky Waddell corner. The final goal was a brilliant Brian McPhee header from a long ball by Sandy Hodge.

While it wasn't the best game ever it was good to see almost the entire squad getting 45 minutes under their belts. Todd Lumsden, Brian McPhee and Ricky Waddell were the only players to play the full 90 minutes. Accies took off Andy Arbuckle with 10 minutes left but were not allowed to bring Stevie Convery back onto the park as he had already been replaced. That would have been OK in a closed door game, but not a proper friendly.

Accies: McEwan, Lumsden, Waddell, Thomson, McLaughlin, Tunbridge, Convery, Aitken, Blackadder, McPhee, Corcoran

Subs: Jellema for McEwan; Hodge for Thomson; Walker for McLaughlin; Hamilton for Tunbridge; Gribben for Convery; Ferguson for Aitken; Fyfe for Blackadder; Arbuckle for Corcoran

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