Airdrie 0 Saints 1
Team ::
Robertson,McQuillan,Bowman,Whiteford,Weir,Griffin,King,O'Halloran,
Feguson,Colquhoun,Preston
Subs :: Scott,Grant,McAnespie
So the championship season ends with another scrappy win, this time over our nearest rivals the wonderfule pseudo-Wegies Airdrie. Not the prettiest of games but given that we had the reserves out today (start counting the missing players....) against their full team (admittedly with Blobby in goal) I suppose we should be happy.
The Saints lineup found Whiteford and Weir in central defence with Danny playing a central midfield role alongside Rhino and Chucky King and Preston on the wings with Fergie (who has surely played his last game for the club) and 'Prof' Colquhoun up front. Unfortunately for most of the game (at least the first hour), this line up seemed to lack pace and as a consequence played a more defensive strategy than youd hoped for. Having said that we nearly scored first when a Rhodes kickout in the first half bounced back off Danny and just went wide. Pity really - that would have made my season.
For most of the game the midfield consisted of a lot of heavy tackling which unfortunately for Saints saw the ref showing his usual west coast bias with Rhino, Colquhoun and Bowman all being yellow-carded before the end of the game with only 2 Airdrie gits in the book. Rhino can count himself unlucky after getting involved in several grudge matches especially with the Jambos has-been Mackay.
Meanwhile on the park the game was fairly end-to-end in the first half, with Robertson being the busier of the keepers and Airdrie suffering from some woeful finishing (still Paddy will improve once Airdrie fail to go up and he moves to Perth). The Saints midfield held well with Rhino having a good game and Charlie King on the wing showing some nice touches, even if he does lack some pace. Up front Colquhoun suffered from heavy tackling which the ref let go and as for Fergie - he was just plain crap and showed an incredible lack of control and skill whenever the ball came near. Add to that his lack of pace and unwillingness to tackle and we had a performance of Peter Fyhr level. IMHO hes one who should be kicked out this summer.
Saints finally got the lead 10 mins into the second half when a long clearance from Robertson found the Airdrie defence sleeping and both Danny (who was nursing a knock and about to be subbed) and the Prof got through. The fat pie-eating English wanker in the home teams goal was totally lost and the Prof sent a simple lob over his over-sized egotistical head and into the net. Amazing how Blobbys sense of wacky humour deserted him when the Saints support queried the score !!!!! :-)
After that Danny was replaced by Phizzy who also played a defensive midfield role although he put a couple of other runs together. Airdrie took advantage of Saints unwillingness to push forward and started to play the offside trap and put us under some pressure with Robertson making 2 or 3 excellent saves. McAnespie and Grant came on for Fergie and King towards the end and Roddy had a couple of great chances as Saints finally started to push up.
Still we got the result we wanted, pissed off Blobby and saw Davies subbed (quote of the day 'watch out Davies, Bob Carolgees is with us !!!'). Also had a really good laugh at the Airdrie 'mascot' and outnumbered and outsang the home support. Personally Im cheering for Hibs in the play-offs purely to avoid having to visit that atmosphereless pit they call Broadwood next season. Other results :: St Mirren 2 Partick 0 Falkirk 3 Morton 0 Bankies 0 E Fife 3 Scumdee 4 Stirling 2