Temple Of Saints - Robbed.

Scottish Premier League - 15/03/2000

Saints 0 Cheating Gits 1 League Table Here

Team : Robbo,Danny,Bollan,Weir,Dods,Kane,Frail,Del,Paddy, Nathan,Pope
Subs : Cuthbert,Chief,Gerry,Jones,Keyring

OK confession time first of all. Don't even begin to expect my usual report. This one is going to be a rant. Firstly about the performance of the total prick who masqueraded as a referee and secondly about some of the so-called professionals at the club who can't seem to be bothered putting in a full 90 minutes. Even after two games against the OF bigots and despite the presence on the park of Dougal the Ref (who bore as much resemblance to an unbiased match official as the Gorgie Gits do to a "big" Euro side) there were far too many passengers in the Saints side tonight. Time to freshen things up.

There was one change tonight with St. Sandy finally giving the Ginger Bomber a starting slot at the expense of Chief who dropped to the bench. It meant a return to the left wing for Del. The first half doesn't really bear talking about.

We had our first inkling of the shite refereeing with some dubious offsides against Nathan early on and the incredible ability of the brick shithouse-sized Tomasshite for the Jambos dropping like a sack of spuds when challenged by Pope - as if.

Saints like Saturday struggled to piece any sort of move together and seemed happy just to punt long balls forward in the hope that Paddy or Nathan might escape the maulings of Elvis long enough to get to the ball. Robbo in goal had a panicky clearance in 18 minutes when he did a Main and left his box whilst at the other end a Paddy chip went just wide of Auntie Nemo in the Gorgie Gits goal.

That was it really for first half action as the game got scrappy with the Gits dropping like flies whenever they thought Zebedee Dougal would give them a free-kick (which was 100% of the time strangely enough). Christ even a low-flypast by a jet saw some of them fall to the ground. Cheats. Mind you we weren't much better with Nathan and Paddy having to do too much on their own. Pope was OK but Frail and Del were shite whilst Kane decided he was still playing for HIVBees with some, shall we say "committed" tackling. Defensively we failed to clear our lines several times with crap passing the order of the day or in Danny's case a punt straight to Nemo.

Still we had a good chance to take the lead just before half time when Nathan broke down the right. He got to the edge of the Gits box before squaring to Frail whose mishit shot went just wide. You get the feeling that if the roles in the move had been reversed then the ball would have been in the net.

Second-half started a bit livelier with Robbo looking alert to save from an Elvis volley after yet another failed clearance by Saints. At the other end Del managed to leap to a cross to head over when the goal was open.

The turning point in the game and the moment when we knew it wasn't going to be our night came after 58 minutes. Some good work in central midfield by Pope saw him send the ball through to Paddy. He ran past the Gits defence into the box and just as he was about to shoot was upended from behind. With Zebedee only 10 yards away we waited on the inevitable pointing to the spot.

And it didn't come. Cue Saints to go mental and the home support to let their feelings be known. How the fuck Dougal could fail to spot one of the most blatant penalties of the season beats me - Christ even the meedja pundits in the stand thought it was a penalty.

So with the home fans giving the ref pelters he next penalises Blaster for trying to get the ball cleared in 65 minutes. He did but the Git he took the ball from threw a tantrum which Zebedee decided meant he should get another go. Cue a cross into the box and McBoggin headed past Robbo.

With the Saints players now fired up the tackles started to go in heavily. Kane was the first name into the book just before Del missed a sitter. Then Gerry came on for the shite Frail and Del missed another sitter.

It was all Saints now and with Jones on for Kane we had 4 (Yup four!!!!) strikers on the park. Nathan moved to wide left and started to feed decent balls into the box. But a Jones header went wide, Nathan missed with a header and several stramashes came to nothing. Even Bollan and Danny saw their long-range free kicks go wide.

Danny picked up a yellow as well in the dying moments as the Tynie Twats started to do so much timewasting you thought they were waiting to see the Killie game at the weekend.

MoM for me was Paddy - he ran his arse off. However there were several others in a blue shirt who need to extract the finger from their arses and start putting in some work. O'Neil, Jones, McMahon, Kane and Frail were too slow tonight or too slack with passes. Nathan put in a fair shift and looks good alongside Paddy but he needs a goal to get his confidence up. McBride is good in midfield but he is no tackler and needs the backing of someone fitter and faster than Kane. And in defence Danny should be moved to the middle - he is looking more and more out of place at right-back. It all pales into insignificance though.

Tonight we started off looking for the Euro slot and at the end are back in the relegation dogfight. But when you see shite refereeing like Zebedee's' performance tonight then you wonder if it's even worthwhile.

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