Airdrie 11 Vs. 0 Gala Fairydean

 There is an old adage in sport that says “You can only play what’s in front of you” it’s probably linked to Poker rather than football but after Saturday’s victory I think it’s apt. 

Over the past week I had heard varying stories concerning Gala everything from “They’re good” to “they were once a very strong non league team but are now in decline”, I think the truth lies in the opening twenty five minutes of the match and at moments through out the game – “Gala like to play football”.

Airdrie Vs. Gala Fairydean

Fairley Vs. Turnbull
Bain Vs. Hay
Lovering Vs. Brown
Stallard Vs. Lothian
Lilley Vs. Hunter (McBride 64)
Lynch (Owens 58) Vs. Young
Johnston Vs. Wilson
Stephenson (Daniel Burns 71) Vs. Rossi
McLaren Vs. Brunton (Grass 73)
Boyle (Holmes 71) Vs. Livingstone
Donnelly Vs. Hay (Jackson 78)

Substitutes

McKane, vs. Lynch,
Green, vs. McBride,
Owens, vs. Grass,
Holmes, vs. Glass,
Daniel Burns vs. Jackson

Ref: Anderson

The opening 25 minutes of the match were pretty even, neither team managing to break the other down. Then a Jamie Stevenson run in to the box saw Gala’s first mistake of the match result in a penalty. Greg Hay clipped Stevenson’s heals as he ran past and Paul Lovering stepped up to put the resulting penalty low in to the bottom corner making it 1-0.

From here on in Airdrie seemed to score every three minutes, our second fell to John Boyle, his shot from just inside the penalty box gave Turnbull very little chance.

Number three came from Jamie Stevenson after Willie McLaren split the defence.

Number four fell to Stevenson again from just outside the penalty box and number five saw John Boyle match Stevenson’s double.

 My only complaint of the afternoon goes to Kieron Stallard after the restart maybe five or ten minutes in he made a challenge through the back of Jack Hay, in a tighter game or even a league match I’ve no doubt he would have been sent off, instead Airdrie had the first booking of the match. The second booking of the game went Gala’s way a carbon copy of Stallards saw Gary Lothian getting his name in the book.

Jamie Stevenson shot saw Turnbull pulling of an excellent save to keep the score line at 5-0.

Then the onslaught of goals began again – goal number six saw Stevenson earn Airdrie’s 2^nd hat trick in two weeks. Jimmy Boyle then made his first substitution; Owens replaced Lynch who has just returned from injury.

Willie McLaren who had been working his socks of for the full game now got his just dessert, with goal number seven.

Goal number eight is up for discussion, Willie McLaren looking for his second saw his shot rattle the post and bounce in to the six yard box, from where I was sitting it bounced of a defender and in to the back of the net, I could be wrong and I’ve no problem with the goal being claimed by or awarded to Boyle for his third and Airdrie’s eighth but just wanted to mention it.

Goal nine came from Paul Lovering a long range shot that beat everyone.

If anyone had told me before the game that we would have scored nine goals and the top goal scorer in the Irn Bru second division was not on the score sheet I would have laughed but goal number ten was reserved for Ryan Donnelly a close range header.

John Boyle had left the park earlier and his replacement Holmes stepped up to the mark for the final goal of the day – Daniel Burns of the under 19’s got the assist.

Airdrie are in the next round of the cup and the draw is tomorrow at 10:30, we kept out first clean sheet since the 10^th of September our 4-0 win over Albion Rovers and we finished the game with eleven men (just).