Paisley & District AFL

League Division 1

Blackstoun United AFC v Westend Villa AFC

6-3

K.O. 6.30pm St James Paisley (Grass) Referee Gerry Reid

I’m not going to say a lot about this game because in my opinion it was probably one of our worst performance’s in all areas of the park since the start of our pre season and I hope even in defeat that we never play as badly again.

Gary Stevenson got the opening goal very early in the game 1-0 which should have settled us down and let us start playing football but it didn’t we continued to be slack and sloppy so sloppy that we didn’t give their lone striker the respect he deserves because he is fast and strong and doesn’t mind chasing a lost cause. Because of this he snatched an equalising goal in the 30^th minute to make it 1-1.

Four min’s later Gary McLeod gets in a header knocking the ball into no mans land behind the defence their keeper comes charging out to blast it away but Karl blocks it the ball bounces loose Karl turns and lobs the ball in to the net over the heads of the covering defenders 2-1.

Half time

Despite Marks composite team talk at half time we still went out sloppy and in the first 2 min’s they got their equaliser to make it 2-2.

Five min’s later we are awarded a penalty which Ryan converted giving the keeper no chance 3-2.

I haven’t actually spoken to the ref about it, but it would seem from what every one else was saying it was for a handball and sent the guy off for it. I have to say that it didn’t look like handball to me and if it was the incident that I saw it was a clean chest and he was harshly done by. While I understand the frustration the players and management feel and indeed their support, they are sill not allowed to give the ref a torrent of abuse because in their opinion he got it wrong. At the same time he sent off another player for I’m presuming foul and abusive. This left Westend Villa with eight men as they had started the game with only ten men. Some of them made to walk off but Hammy got them under control and carried on with the game.

55 min’s and Karl make’s it 5-2. This came about from a throw in to Paul who crossed into the box to Karl who headed it home unchallenged.

61min’s Smudger comes on for Owen and Kevin comes on for Gary S. And then six min’s later Budda comes on for Paul. With about 20 minutes of the game left to go people were turning round and asking how long to go. The game had become a drudge and every one just wanted to go home. It was about this time because we had lost interest in the game that they burst up the park and got another goal to make 5- 3.

Because we got stung we upped our game again and had several chances to score through Gaza and Karl, it was finally rounded of with a nice goal from Robert 6-3.

The team to day was: -Steven Kane, Paul Galloway, Chris Crichton, Stuart Piggott, Stuart Witherspoon, Gary Stevenson, Ryan Pirie, Owen Gillespie, Robert Clark, Karl Flynn and Gary McLeod.

Used Subs were: -Grant McEnhill, Kevin Kane and Craig Larkin.

Unused Subs were: -John Moran.