Temple Of Saints - Wheres Yer Lubo Gone

Scottish Premier League - 13/05/2000

Saints 0 Swearie Boyz 0 League Table Here

Team : Robbo,Chief,Blaster,Weir,Dods,Kane,Millar,Del,Jones, Parker,Pope
Subs : Gow,Crozier,Frail,Paddy,Keyring

This one was weird. On the one hand a draw against a bunch of OF bigots is a good result, but when you realise that the aforementioned bigots were down to 9 men thanks to a lack of self-control (both verbally and physically) and that we hit the woodwork twice and had countless chances to kill the game off, it gets a bit more disappointing.

After the debacle of the Rangers game it was good to see the Saints-only policy enforced in the West Stand with a good home support to cheer the boys on - not that there was much of a competition from the other stands as the 'best supporters in the world' couldn't be arsed to turn up and back their team - hypocrites. On the park St. Sandy stuck by the same team as last week with Pope in for Keyring. The subs bench saw some changes though. 17 yr. old midfielder Brendan Crozier got a place and Paddy and Frail were selected ahead of Messiah and Gerry with Danny missing out due to a knee injury.

As usual for Saints the large part of the first half was boring end of season fare - practically identical to last week's game with the difference that the cheats were wearing green and white this time. Berkovic in particular seems to worship the pitch at McDiarmid - Christ knows he spent enough time examining it in close detail. The early stages did see Saints enjoy more possession but a lack of creativity in midfield (with Pope in particular seemingly apathetic towards trying to beat his former team-mates) combined with some shocking passing meant that we didn't get that far forward. Not that Robbo had anything to do either as Weir and Forrest Gump played the offside trap to perfection against the overrated youngster and Geordie Reject in the Sellik line-up.

Still the game sprang to life after 20 minutes when Willie Young made his presence known. A Tommy Johnson challenge with Blaster ended up in a handbags at dawn style duel although it has to be said that Bollan tried to walk away from it all. Johnson raised his hands though and was lucky to get off with a yellow. Of course tradition meant that 2 minutes later Berkovic examined a particularly attractive piece of turf unchallenged but Young booked Jones for standing too near the Sellik git. Jones lack of pace meant that a lot of the attacks were going through Kiegan and apart from one time when he took on and almost beat 4 Sellik defenders the young striker missed Saints best chance when he beat the offside trap and was one on one with Kerr. It would have been simpler to square the ball to the Corporal to tap in but Parker tried to go it himself and Kerr saved.

That was it really for the first half on the park but the real entertainment was just starting. Lubo was leaving the park when he launched into a tirade of abuse at the Saints fans (apparently in response to something being said to him). Of course he was right in front of the ref at the time. When the police threatened to take action during the half-time interval (in a rare example of Tayside police supporting their locals) Willie Young decided to let football deal with it and the Sellik player received a red card for foul and abusive language. As word of this spread round the home fans (thanks to a couple of the Saints officials who told us), "Where's Yer Lubo Gone" became the song of the day - of course the Wegie bigots didn't get the joke until the one holding the brain cell for the day was able to inform his mates that there were only 10 Sellik players on the park at the start of the 2nd half.

Saints immediately pressed forward and almost took the lead within a couple of minutes. Kane saw his shot blocked, but Parker got to the bye-line and send a low ball back across the goal. The Corporal got a shot in which looked to be handled on the line before rebounding to him only to see his second attempt deflected for a corner.

5 minutes later and Sellik were down to 9 men as Johnson lost the plot after losing the ball and scythed down Chief. Willie Young wasted no time in producing a second yellow and subsequent red.

With Saints now in control and Sellik defending desperately Del broke through the middle. He sent a lovely square ball to the left for Blaster to drive in from 20 yards only to see his shot rebound off the post. He saw another effort from a free kick go just wide a minute later following an incident when Stubbs became the latest Sellik git to get booked (for dissent this time).

Paddy came on for Jones after 65 minutes with the English striker looking as though he was about to show some Sellik-style lack of discipline. It has to be said though that Paddy looked fairly ineffective and I can't see him lasting beyond the summer. Saints were still piling on the shots and playing some lovely passing football as they used the extra men advantage. Bollan had another blaster blocked and Kane saw a volley well saved.

The last minutes saw Keyring come on for Pope (who looked shite) as we went for the killer goal. Of course this meant the game was getting physical and Sellik were unlucky to have Healy stretchered off after a clash when he and Blaster were going for a 50-50 ball. The closing stages saw us hit the bar again from a Kiegan header and Paddy miss a good shot from 6yds out as Sellik packed their box to keep the game goalless.

MoM for me was Marc Millar who had a good gutsy performance in midfield although O'Halloran had another good game at right-back. It's disappointing not to have won but given the lack of effort and performance from Pope, Paddy and Jones it's perhaps not too surprising.

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