Inverness 1 : Airdrie 2

By By Chris MacMillan
December 2 2004

Date: 2/12/2001 Having a one-minute silence to commemorate the death of an Inverness shareholder, the cold day was made even colder. Why does a minute's silence always seem to take so long?

Inverness began the game well having most of the starting pressure, but it didn't take long for Airdrie to show why they are sitting top of the league. An excellent cross from Mark Roberts found Owen Coyle unmarked at the far post, unusually for Coyle the ball went spinning away for a goal kick. The First goal came on the 17th minute, this time the cross was supplied by Coyle, a dummy by Stewart Taylor found Tony Smith unmarked again on the far post and with a well placed shot and Airdrie were one up. The rest of the first half belonged to Airdrie and by the end, they should have been at least three up. The closest a shot by Stewart Taylor that rebounded of the underside of the cross bar. Again the beginning of the second half belonged to Airdrie, all the fight seemed to be going in one direction, towards the Inverness goal. It took until the 58th minute for Airdrie to score the goal that we thought would seal a victory in Airdrie's favour, Stewart Taylor up with the play again was nudged off the ball and the ref had no alternative but to give Airdrie a penalty. Up steps Owen Coyle for his thirteenth league goal of the season. Unfortunately the mid-field decided now was the time to start defending and from there the game changed dramatically in the favour of Inverness. Within minutes they had pulled back a goal, mainly due to some very sloppy defending and Paul Ritchie scored from point blank range. With the Mid-field sitting almost on the shoulders of the defence there was some harrowing moments for the Airdrie support until finally ref Craig Mackay blew the final whistle after playing three minutes of injury time. On the subject of the ref: Was he scared to make any decisions, okay were grateful for the penalty but does the rule book not say that if you are the last defender before the keeper and you commit a foul it is a booking offence if not a sending off.