A Tale Of Two Stewarts
given little chance
By The Spider
September 22 2002
Saturday, 21st September, 2002 Peterhead 3 Queen’s Park 0 (Bells Scottish League - Third Division)
Things have got to be getting bad when some people who should clearly know better try to claim that Queen's defeat yesterday owed a large part to poor refereeing and inclement weather! In truth, neither was a contributing factor but the inability to get the ball down and play a passing game most certainly was. The absence of Steven Moffat and Jimmy Allan most certainly had something to do with it, as both have been amongst our best performers this season, and without them we looked unsettled at the back and unable to be creative going forward.
As far as the weather was concerned, a strong wind was certainly blowing from one end to the other, but for those "Johnny-come-latelys" who think that's bad, it was nothing compared to the storm force gales that seasoned campaigners have been regularly experiencing at Arbroath and Montrose over the decades. This was nothing more than an unseasonably strong sea breeze, and funny how one team was able to play good football in it during both halves!
Referee Allan certainly was involved in some controversial decisions during the course of the 90 minutes, "controversial" that is if you don't have a proper understanding of the laws of the game. To try to apportion blame on either of those factors is a case of sour grapes indeed, and hopefully John McCormack will talk more sense when his views on the performance become known.
Given the current injury situation, there was nothing to complain about in Cowboy's starting line-up which looked as strong as possible in the circumstances. His substitutions were a different kettle of fish though, but more about them later.
Playing with the wind at their backs in the first half, Queen's knew that they would come under sustained pressure from the start, but they seemed ill prepared for it and lost the opener following Peterhead's first real attack of the game. Right back Burns was allowed to waltz his way unchallenged along the outside of the Queen's area before slipping the ball out to the left touchline. The ball was played back to Johnston who was given time and space to link with that well known penalty box predator Iain Stewart (how many goals will he be allowed to score against us from less than 10 yards range?) who poked the ball under the helpless Colin Stewart from six yards out to resume his long-running love affair with the back of the Queen's net.
Little wonder that those supporters who have seen the self same act repeat itself many times over the years, could only grimace and shake their heads at the naivety of the defending. The game was to quickly become a battle of the Stewarts, and without some excellent saves from the big 'keeper, his Peterhead namesake could have grabbed many more goals than those he ultimately did.
In the 10th minute big Colin flung himself low down to his left to beat away a deflected free kick before, three minutes later, he showed good judgement of the pace on a through ball to Iain Stewart to allow it to run through to him rather than commit himself too early and leave himself exposed to the possibility of a sliding toe-poke resulting in the ball being flicked past him at the edge of his area.
Then an excellent long ball from Tony Quinn sent John Gemmell to the edge of the Peterhead area with only Mathers to beat, but John's wild slice of a shot when stretching for it only knocked the ball a few yards in the direction of the corner flag and there was absolutely no chance of his gaining a penalty when he collided with the Peterhead 'keeper moments later after their momentum took them into each other. Referee Allan quite correctly waved away the half-hearted muted appeals.
Bain played a neat one-two with Mackay on the quarter of an hour mark before firing the return ball towards goal to force Colin Stewart into a fine save. With 27 minutes played, Burns repeated his early trick of coming in from the touchline to create a shooting opportunity for Tindal, but the right winger's hooked left foot shot trundled harmlessly past Stewart's left hand post.
A poor pass from Johnny Whelan, looking a shadow of last season's star performer, allowed Peterhead to break quickly from their own half in the 36th minute, and Damiano Agostini eventually saved the day with a well timed challenge in the heart of his own area. Then Tindal did force Stewart into making a save after Bain had played a well weighted through ball into his path.
Peterhead should have grabbed a second goal in the 41st minute when suicidal defending allowed a long floated corner to sail all the way through to Raeside some 15 yards from goal. Has he had a free header, that would have been bad enough, but what made this worthy of derision was that the big defender was able to take the ball down before firing over the bar, whilst half a dozen Queen's defenders/midfielders in close proximity stood completely motionless whilst waiting for each other to take some responsibility and close the ball down.
Ironically, having had such a close escape and as absurd as it sounds, Queen's could have gone in level at half time after John Gemmell fired in a early shot from long range which had Mathers beaten all ends up and the home 'keeper could only look on anxiously as the ball drifted narrowly past his right hand post.
Having been so out of the game during the first forty five minutes, those Queen's fans who shivered on the far side having forgotten that a Glasgow summer's day means little to a cruel North Sea, could have been forgiven for thinking that Queen's were actually now in quite a strong position with Peterhead having squandered the opportunity to take a bigger lead than they had done.
Cowboy obviously thought so too as he rightly made no changes at the interval to allow charges the opportunity to see what they could do with the wind at their backs. Having lost an early goal in the first half, the last thing he could have anticipated was doing so again in the second, but Queen's nearly did just that in the 48th minute.
Collecting the ball unmarked on the left edge of the Queen's area, Mackay committed Stewart to dive to his left by tricking him into thinking that he was going to fire a shot across the Queen's 'keeper towards his back post before, instead, opening his body up to casually side-foot towards the near one. Now totally off-balance, Colin could do nothing but look on in anguish as the ball headed to his wrong side. Fortunately for him, the ball came off the outside of the base of the post enabling him and the rest of his team-mates to breath a huge sigh of relief.
In the 55th minute, Tony Quinn headed an inswinging John Gallagher corner over the bar before, a minute later up at the other end, a bemused Colin Stewart completely misjudged a corner in the swirling breeze and the ball went over him before bouncing off the face of the bar and away to safety.
Queen's made their first substitution in the 62nd minute when, to the astonishment of fans of both teams, the lively looking John Gemmell who had won many fine aerial challenges was taken off in favour of Stuart Jack. Perhaps Willie Martin has got the hang of this substitution concept after all because he most certainly couldn't have grumbled had he been the one to give way following a largely anonymous performance thus far in the game. Compare that to some excellent shifts in previous weeks where he was hauled off without so much as a congratulatory nod in his direction.
Shortly afterwards, almost as justification for his reprieve, the hitherto extremely subdued Willie suddenly sprung to life when he pounced on a through ball to round Mathers and fire for goal from an acute angle, but excellent defending saw the Raeside get back in the nick of time to clear the ball for a corner. Before the corner could be taken though, John Gallagher was rightly booked for a late challenge which had taken place a full minute earlier when Peterhead were allowed the benefit of the advantage rule whilst attacking, the irony being that that instance of good refereeing directly contributed to Queen's being able to break away to allow Martin his chance of the equaliser.
Then Raeside was booked for the home side as he expressed his opinion on proceedings once too often for Allan's liking.
Cowboy's final throw of the dice came in the 73rd minute when he gambled by taking off John Gallagher and Johnny Whelan and replacing them with Craig Taggart and Stephen Canning. Whilst some dissatisfaction has been expressed in other quarters over the removal of the normally influential Whelan, the truth of the matter is that Cowboy has shouted himself hoarse in asking Johnny to play a certain role in this game but, for whatever reason, the popular Liverpudlian had simply been unable to impose himself and could have no complaints at the change being made at his expense.
Unfortunately, these further two substitutions did little to help and the game was ended as a contest in the 79th minute when criminal defending again played its part as Peterhead celebrated the comfort of a second goal. Having failed to learn the lesson of their lucky escape in the 41st minute, how frustrating therefore for John McCormack to witness an identical corner to float it's way to the back edge of the Queen's area where the totally unmarked Raeside volleyed it towards goal to allow an equally unmarked Iain Stewart to flick it past Colin Stewart from close range.
The little nuisance nearly grabbed his hat-trick just two minutes later when Colin Stewart made a brilliant point blank reflex save to deny the lively striker, but it was Iain Stewart himself who had the third and final laugh just seconds later. Peterhead substitute Cooper raced up the right wing to deliver a cross along the six yard box and, as Colin Stewart and his three central defenders left it to each other to deal with the danger, the no. 8 took full advantage of their hesitancy to fling himself headlong at the back post to score with a diving header.
Queen's should have grabbed a consolation goal in the 84th minute but a combination of selfishness followed by basic stupidity prevented them from doing so. Stephen Canning was running towards goal with two defenders in front of him when Stuart Jack popped up unmarked on his left asking for the easy pass which would put him clean through at the edge of the area. However, Stephen elected to go it alone and as one defender slipped he neatly beat the other before side-stepping the on-rushing Mathers. Now all he had to do was to slip the ball into the empty net for a magnificent solo goal. However, the problem was that Stuart Jack was a yard in front of him as Stephen went by Mathers and in a clearly offside position. Has he remained motionless and allowed Canning his moment of glory, he would not have been interfering with play but instead he allowed the moment to get the better of him without thinking about his actions. No sooner had he done what Canning was just about to do, and that was to roll the ball into the empty net, then near-side assistant referee Gordon Hunter immediately raised his flag to leave referee Crawford Allan with no option than to rightly chalk it off. What a waste, and Jack's faux pas was further compounded by Taggart's ignorance of the rules of the game which earned him an unnecessary yellow card for his futile attempt of trying to get the decision reversed.
In the dying minutes Queen's managed to create another couple of opportunities to further demonstrate that the wind was not the root cause of their poor play up to that point. Firstly Tony Quinn fired an early long range shot narrowly wide before Willie Martin got underneath an excellent Danny Ferry cross, following a neat interchange with Stuart Jack, and only succeeded in glancing his header well wide when directly in front of goal.
Apart from Colin Stewart, the only Spiders to earn pass marks were Damiano Agostini, Danny Ferry and John Gemmell for battling against the odds without much assistance, but a word too for Stevie (Pongo?) Fallon who showed enough to demonstrate that once he regains full match fitness, he could be a valuable acquisition.
Apart from those few plus points, things couldn't have been much worse which means that things can only get better for Tuesday night's League Cup tie against Dundee Utd. at Tannadice. Certainly their scout in the stand didn't make many written observations, other than noting the performance of Peterhead's Callum MacDonald who is on-loan from United, but he surely can't have failed to notice how much Queen's are currently lacking in pace in the full back areas. For all that Danny Ferry has much to offer in a more advance role, serious consideration should be given to restoring him to his normal right wing back role and, if Steven Moffat is fit, to using Richard Sinclair's pace on the left hand side. Otherwise, given Steven Thomson's aerial ability, a half decent service for the Scotland striker from the wings could prove embarrassing.
At the other end, the return of Jimmy Allan is a must if Queen's are to produce the finesse required to break down a Premier Division defence. Whatever way you view it, the odds are heavily stacked against Queen's making any impact whatsoever, and that itself may end up to be the only thing going in their favour.
ENTERTAINMENT VALUE : 2/5 STAR SPIDER : COLIN STEWART (prevented a rout)
QUEEN’S PARK : Colin Stewart, Stevie Fallon, John Gallagher (Stephen Canning - 73), Jamie White, Damiano Agostini, Richard Sinclair, Danny Ferry, Johnny Whelan (Craig Taggart - 73), John Gemmell (Stuart Jack - 62), Tony Quinn, Willie Martin
Subs (not used) : Stewart Thomson (GK), Gordon Lappin
Scorer(s) : none
Booked : Gallagher (63 - late challenge), Taggart (84 - dissent)
PETERHEAD : Paul Mathers, Gordon Burns (Craig Cooper - 66), Callum MacDonald, Robbie Raeside, Mark Simpson, Kevin Bain, Kevin Tindal, Iain Stewart (Mohamed Camara - 93), Stuart Mackay (Douglas Cameron - 76), Martin Johnston, Andy Roddie.
Subs (not used) : Ross Buchanan (GK), Keith Robertson
Scorer(s) : Stewart (2, 79, 82)
Booked : Raeside (43 - dangerous challenge), Bain (64 - dissent)
REFEREE : Crawford Allan **** (* = inept, ** = poor, *** = mediocre, **** = good, ***** = excellent)