Airdrie (1) v. E.Fife (1) - 8/11/03
By Gordon Thomson
November 8 2003
After the miserable, crowd dwindling, apathy enducing performance last week, it was important for Airdrie to re-establish their promotion credentials with a sound thrashing of second placed East Fife. And for the second week running there was a surprise exclusion....
Ok, we had 'The Gaffer' back from his lumbar injury of last week but still missing was his defensive partner, Allan McManus. To add to our woe the lack of 'future Scotland cap', Alan Gow, suggested we'd be better off staying in the pub. Not to worry though, we'd unleash all our venom on the poor fifers?. Stevie McKeown replaced Gow up front and Singbo dropped to the bench, whilst David Dunn was shunted out to left (wing) back. AIRDRIE UTD
Airdrie certainly started like they were on a mission to finish this game quickly. In the opening minute Neil McGowan was unlucky not to score with a powerful header, and Vareille later had a free header from a Dunn cross that he really could have done better with, certainly better than heading straight at the keeper. Vareille, McKeown and Roberts were working well up front and, though they lacked the pace of Gow, seemed to carry a goal threat. Problem was, we couldn't get a good quality ball to them. With Dunn sacrificed in midfield we were less inspirational and more perspiration. Indeed I wanted to label this game as 'The Three Little Pigs Game'. We certainly huffed and puffed but this was not the straw or wood house. East Fife's team resembled the land of the giants. At the back we looked a bit more composed with Sandy back sweeping but too many of the players looked shell shocked after last week's battering. Too many bad passes and hesitation cost us dearly. In midfield Dunn supplied some good crosses but wasn't half the player he is through the middle. Willie Wilson on the right steadied a lot from last week but misread too many situations and lacked any kind of quality on his delivery from wide. Doc threatened a fair bit from the midfield but Marv had a real stinker. Doc and Marv just don't work well as a partnership. No passing, no flambouyance and too many gaps. It's just not right.
Roberts went off after about half an hour to be replaced by Glancy. In all honesty it was probably for the best that injury would bring the inevitable. I'm still working on the premise that 'form is temporary, class is permanent' in his case. Apart from a clear penalty that KPMG's finest, Stuart Dougal, decided not go give when Jerome was clearly barged, the rest of the first half was absolutely boring and half time didn't come early enough. You couldn't blame Sandy for giving Mr. Dougal a hell of a mouthful for that one.
Second half we attacked the game with more verve and rightfully took the lead almost midway through the half when the impressive Martin Glancy hit the bye line in determined fashion before cutting back a delightful cross that evaded the gigantic defence and keeper for Docherty to head home with ease. I'm sure I heard someone shout "thank God it wasn't Jerome who was on the end of it" but that would have been cruel? Almost immediately though Airdrie hit the panic switch and started making an absolute mess of retaining possession. Missed tackles, poor punts and pathetic marking led to the inevitable fight back and it was no surprise when Kenny Duechar out jumped McGowan from a free kick to head home powerfully to restore parity. Docherty was unlucky near the end with a lovely shot that came off the bar. But there were two differing situations near the end of the game that both infuriated and delighted me. Firstly I was livid with Neil McGowan. In his year at Airdrie he's seen red a few times and recently missed a cup final, his absence costing us dearly. Today he clearly stamped on a Fifer with minutes to go. Is this really the professional attitude that either we or he needs? I'd rather we had a team of hard you know whats in the mould of legendary hard men like Wattie Kidd and Sammy Conn, Balfour and Black etc.. McGowan is a hard player 99% of the time and a driving force in the team but his temper and reckless behaviour is a major let down for him. He's only 26 years old and looks capable of following us up through the leagues if we can move on but incidents like today will haunt him. Thankfully the truly awful Stuart Dougal and the linesman missed it. On a brighter note youngster Willie McLaren made his full debut with around ten minutes left. He came on for Vareille and played on the left of the front three. Without wanting to jump to too many conclusions, first impressions of the boy are very, very, promising. McLaren was fast and direct in his running, vaguely reminiscint of Gowser, and almost single handedly dragged us back into the game. A silver lining indeed for the crowd.
| McGeown | Better than last week, but he's a bag of nerves with the ball at his feet. | 5/10 |
| Willie Wilson | Low calibre, except his comical 'third leg' clearance. If you didn't see it, sorry, too difficult to describe. Very poor use of the ball in promising situations | 4/10 |
| Scott Wilson | Still doesn't look half the player he was a month or two back. Still injured? Something's not right. Forgotten how to jump, pass, defend... | 4/10 |
| Stewart | Made a clear difference, and tried in vain to push the team forward including a few 'nosebleed' forays forward himself. A few uncharacteristic howlers at the back too... | 6/10 |
| McGowan | Spent the game ferociously tackling anything that moved, was unlucky not to score and was lucky to finish the game. | 5/10 |
| Dunn | Put in a lot of effort, had some very good crosses and some poor ones but essentially was wasted on the left wing. | 5/10 |
| Docherty | Carried more of a goal threat than his forwards and his effort couldn't be faulted. Not very creative in midfield though. | 6/10 |
| Marvyn Wilson | It's very hard to find too many positives from Marvyn's display today. He started badly with a few misplaced passes and a few slips but he battled hard. | 4/10 |
| Roberts | Stared brightly but went off midway through first half with a leg injury. | 2/10 |
| Vareille | Not one of his greatest games. He blew an easy looking chance with an unchallenged header in the six yd box, but should have had a penalty. | 5/10 |
| McKeown | Worked very hard and seemed to make a big difference to our forward play. If only some of his teammates...... | 7/10 |
| s. Glancy (c.25mins for Roberts) | Came on for Roberts and set up the goal brilliantly. Twisted and turned all day with vigour and resolve. | n/a |
| Ronald (c80mins for Marvyn) | Primarly brought on to defend set pieces but held the midfield together in closing stages. | n/a |
| McLaren (c80mins for Vareille) | What an introduction. Only on for about ten minutes but he certainly lit the game up and did enough to excite the crowd with his menacing running. He held the ball well, dribbled past men like they weren't there. His attitude seemed good and was very promising. Ok, here's a couple of cliches I couldn't hold in. "That boy McLaren has a good engine ". "I heard that boy McLaren had the fastest lap in training". "That boy McLaren takes the corners well". Phew, I just had to get them out... | n/a |