Arbroath 1
Partick Thistle 0
Scottish League (Second Division)

Match Report

Today brings to the end a busy sporting week, at least by my standards. Last Saturday’s match was followed by a dance, then the fitba on the tele on Sunday, then to Airdrie on Wednesday for the finals of the West of Scotland Boxing Championships (superb stuff) and now having practically finalised our skiing trip to France in January it is back to "falling down" Gayfield for the Partick match. The local press was reporting that the Club owned the ground upon which part of the road outside Gayfield is built hence we were expecting to be charged a toll to drive towards Tutties for our pre match pint. This was not the case but must give us a bit more bargaining power for the forthcoming planning meeting. I was joined today by Jag’s fan Neil who is recovering from 4 weeks of winding down followed by a Thursday night leaving do in Perth and another last night in Aberdeen as he said his farewell to Hydro Electric.
The repair work has now been carried out on the enclosure and the ground was back to its full glory. After last weeks performance we were not expecting many changes apart from the return of "Vinnie" Jones if his suspension is completed. His suspension was complete but Dave Baikie, as the manager is permitted to, elected not to take my advice and played the same team as started last weeks match against Livingston and put "Vinnie" on the bench alongside Tindall and Thomson. This is, I think, John McGlashan’s last game for the Lichties as his loan period is now over and he will be returning to Dundee. Leading the opposition’s attack was former Lichties favourite and local lad, Paul Tosh, who has joined Partick on loan from Hibs.

The best crowd of the season, due to the travelling support nearly outnumbering our regular 600 home supporters, watched the Lichties kick off the match against the wind, towards the "Switchie" end. We started brightly and during an early attack Arbuckle’s shot from outside the penalty box went just over the bar. Cooper was on song down the right wing and had the beating of the Thistle left back every time he got the ball but alas Coop did not get as much quality ball as he should have. The game was end to end stuff but alas it could not be called exciting as the ball invariably went out of play, assisted by the strong wind, for either a throw in or a goal kick. Whilst Hinchie was never troubled, our defenders were occasionally finding it hard to effectively clear the ball against the wind. Cooper had a couple of fine runs up the wing and after beating the defender his crosses were cleared with, on one occasion, "Big" Jim Mercer was seen by the fans to turn away from the ball rather than attack it. Both teams got a few corners but found it hard, with the swirling wind, to take any advantage. Young Barry Sellars was taking time to adjust to the gusts as he hoofed a couple of passes into the stand when Cooper had started his run expecting to receive the ball. Gallagher won the ball back following a corner on our right (why we persistently use two players to take a corner which leaves us a player short when the ball is crossed I will never know - again I am not the manager) and had a mazey run into the penalty box beating player after player, did not go down when tackled but alas we failed to convert his cross. A Mercer header was easily saved then in another attack the ball broke to John McGlashan with only the keeper to beat but the Jags keeper blocked his shot. At the other end the forwards were just missing the corner flags with their efforts. Just before half time Gal was (over) running with the ball in midfield and in true fashion was dispossessed (why his team-mates do not shout a warning re the opposition player coming in from behind I don’t know or maybe Gal is deaf) and the Jags broke upfield, got a corner but failed to do anything positive from the corner.

No changes at half time. Thistle took the initiative at the beginning of the half but soon we got back into the game with Coops still tormenting the full back whenever he got the ball. From a free kick about 30 yards out Arbuckle’s shot hit the outside of the post then, from a Cooper cross Mercer managed to miss the ball whilst the defender behind him headed clear for a corner. Hinchie had no real saves to make but collected the ball well from a Jags corner but came down heavily and needed treatment but thankfully recovered. We were playing with the wind a lot better than Thistle had done in the first half and Colin McG picked up a ball in midfield and hit a cracking shot which their keeper just touched over. From Cooper’s corner, the ball broke to Sellars who slotted the ball home to the keepers right to put us one up. Mercer broke free on our left but with a defender near him his weak shot was blocked by the keeper. Coops was injured whilst defending but recovered to continue, Thistle brought on two subbies, failed to convert during a stramash in our goal area, the Jags keeper pulled off another fine save, our defence started to panic a bit with their clearances (John McGlashan being the worst offender) and in the last minute Cooper broke free but his shot was pushed out by the keeper for another corner. Eventually, with the home crowd whistling for time, the referee blew for time up.

Another fine team performance and we should have won by more than one goal - the only area of concern was the "panic" defending towards the end of the match. John Crawford deserved his MOM award though Coops must have pushed him hard - Neil reckoned Coops was our most influential player and "Big" Jim Mercer was not! The team has a well balance look with Stevie Florence playing the finest fitba of his Gayfield career, the goals have temporarily dried up for John McG but he is still loking sharp. Now only one defeat in our last 8 games and still the Arbroath public are not seen at Gayfield in force!

Match report written by arbroathfc.org.uk