Accies and St Johnstone ended the season with a cracking match at New Douglas Park, with the visitors running out 4-3 winners. St Johnstone raced to a 3-0 lead before the break, but James McCarthy gave Accies some hope just before half time with a well taken goal. Richard Offiong brought the Accies support to their feet with a thumping shot from outside the area, but then Martin Hardie scored a fine 4th goal for the Saints. Brian Wake made it 4-3 near the end but St Johnstone held out to win the game.
At that point, Gretna were still drawing up at Dingwall and the thousands of Saints fans thought they had done enough to win the league. Then came news of James Grady's goal at Victoria Park and the Saints fans slipped quietly away as Gretna celebrated.
Hamilton Accies 3 St Johnstone 4
New Douglas Park, Hamilton
Saturday, 28th April 2007
This game had everything. A record crowd, seven goals, cheerleaders, a car on the pitch and emotional scenes at the end. Sadly for the thousands of Saints fans, their anxious wait after the final whistle was to end in heartache as news came through of Gretna's late winner up at Dingwall.
Accies boss Billy Reid had to make a couple of unwelcome changes for this game, with David Elebert ruled out after his hernia operation and Alex Neil being withdrawn during the warm-up. This meant that experienced defender Mark McLaughlin made an unexpected return after missing the last 6 months of the season with injury and teenager James Gibson being brought into the heart of the midfield.
There was almost a full house in the stadium for this game, with around 3000 Saints fans packed into the Spice of Life and main stands. This gave the game an excellent atmosphere. The visitors had the better of the opening stages; in fact it would not be incorrect to say that they dominated the first half. There was one of those surreal moments early on when a false report of a goal for Ross County up at Dingwall swept through the Saints support. They soon settled down, but it must have confused their players. Not that it showed however; the Saints were in complete control of events on the park. The only surprise was that it took them 23 minutes to open the scoring. The goal came from an entirely predictable source, with Kevin James heading in a Paul Sheerin corner at the back post. Worse was to follow for Accies just 9 minutes later, when another Sheerin corner was headed back across goal by James for Martin Hardie to head home from close range.
Accies were in danger of receiving a real hammering and things got even worse after 38 minutes when Jason Scotland raced clear on goal with Brian Easton in his wake. He made an excellent job of rounding the exposed Sean Murdoch before shooting home. This goal seemed to inspire Accies and they grabbed a goal back before the break with James McCarthy showing great composure and control before shooting the ball past Kevin Cuthbert from 12 yards.
As Gretna were leading at half time up at Dingwall they were in the promotion position at this stage, but the atmosphere inside the stadium was to change when Ross County scored an equaliser just after the interval. As the Saints fans were getting very excited in the stands, on the pitch the game was a lot more evenly balanced. Billy Reid withdrew Mark McLaughlin at the break, with David Winters taking his place. This gave Accies much more threat going forwards and Richard Offiong spurned a couple of chances to pull his side back into the game. A quick through ball left him with just Cuthbert to beat, but his first time shot flew past the post. His other chance came when the ball was squared to him 10 yards out but his shot went over the top. Richard was not to be denied, however, and after 71 minutes he scored one of the season's best goals. he took the ball from substitute Mark Gilhaney on the left, cut inside, and unleashed a piledriver into the far corner of the net. Kevin Cuthbert didn't even move as the ball whistled past him. Gilhaney had arrived a couple of minutes earlier to replace Marvyn Wilson. Marv left the field for the final time in an Accies shirt to a decent ovation from the Accies support.
Accies were playing well now but just couldn't get that equaliser. Martin Hardie restored St Johnstone's two goal advantage with a fine low shot and was yellow carded for his celebrations. The non playing members of the St Johnstone squad gave each other "high fives" in the middle of the main stand as they saw their dream of achieving SPL status apparently about to come true. Then Brian Wake found space in the area to clip the ball past Cuthbert to make it 4-3. After that, St Johnstone decided that enough was enough and started to hold the ball up in the corners and generally run down the clock. Referee Colin Hardie, who had a good game, blew for full time very promptly and both teams got a great ovation from all the fans in the stadium. It had been a great game. Richard Offiong received the match sponsor's champagne as man of the match.
By this time, many of the St Johnstone fans had left their seats to congregate at the track behind the goal. Perhaps they were planning a pitch invasion to celebrate their league win. Then came that moment of absolute heartbreak as news came through of James Grady's goal up at Victoria Park. After a moment of stunned silence and a quick chorus of one of their songs, they began to file quietly out of the stadium.
Hamilton: Murdoch, Parratt, Swailes, McLaughlin (Winters 46), Easton, McCarthy, Wilson (Gilhaney 68), Gibson, McArthur, Offiong, McLeod (Wake 72).
Subs Not Used: McJimpsey, Jellema. Booked: McArthur.
Goals: McCarthy 40, Offiong 71, Wake 88.
St Johnstone: Cuthbert, Anderson, Lawrie, James, Stanic, Sheerin (McLaren 49), McInnes, Hardie, Mensing, MacDonald (Lilley 56), Scotland.
Subs Not Used: Jackson, Morais, Halliwell.
Goals: James 23, Hardie 32, Scotland 38, Hardie 81.
Att: 4,975.
Ref: C Hardie
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