WAKE UP MO!
McQ meets mo mascots
By Gary McKenzie
April 24 2004
Scottish FootballLeague Division Three, Saturday 24 April 2004, Links Park, Montrose. MONTROSE 1 (Wood (62)), GRETNA 4 (Wake (6, 47)Townsley (40, 84))
This was the penultimate home game of the season and boy did it show, Gretna, still in with a very slim shout of promotion, looked much more up for it, and it paid off after 6 minutes when Wake headed home a knock on from a corner.
Montrose did try to come back, but we weren't creating anything useful in the Gretna half. The fans were concentrating on the sideshow that was Ryan Baldacchino. The Beckham-haired winger with one blue and one white boot (surely a case for stopping lower division footballers from watching their better-paid cousins if ever there was one) made an enemy of himself with a couple of hefty challenges and eventually a wild karate kick at Barry Donachie after the ball was away. Incredibly the ref hadn't booked him before and he only flashed yellow this time to the dismay of the home support. This resulted in the preened winger being roundly booed every time he touched the ball. 
Gretna went further ahead from a Townsley header from another corner, and even having 11 in the box at corners does not seem to be working for the Mo just now.
The mercy of the half-time whistle arrived and the biggest cheer came as Arbroath were one down to Stenny.
Wake took only two minutes to finish the game as a contest with the best goal of the match.
Wood managed to pull one back with an opportunist's goal. As vet
eran Davie Irons fluffed it just outside his own box, Wood rounded the keeper and expertly finished.
Hall sent on Sharp, Hall and Henderson for Spink, Webster and Greig Smith but Gretne were the ones who finished on a high with Townsley's second, again rising to head home from yet another corner.
The biggest home cheer of the day came when Elliot Smith unceremoniously upended Baldacchino. The flamboyant number 7 obviously appreciated the irony and applauded the home support sarcastically.
In conclusion, perhaps our best hope at the moment is to lobby the league to ban corners...
Teams
Montrose: Butter, Donachie, Greig Smith, McQuillan, Ferguson, Webster, Spink, Kerrigan, Elliot Smith, Michie, Wood
Subs: Henderson, Sharp, Hall, Narey, Hankinson.
Gretna: Mathieson, Birch, Prokas, Irons, Skelton, Baldacchino, McGuffie, Wake, Gordon, Townsley, Stevens
Subs: Cohen, Eccles, May, Spence, Summersgill
Other match reports
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_div_1/3651403.stm