A Son of the Rock

New Bayview, 6/2/10

Or, as Onebrow put it to me after he scored their (and his) second, “Are we playing Stevie Crawford on his own?”

This was a good open game with both sides trying to go forward and something of a goal fest for the first quarter hour when I thought that it was going to be one of those goal-every-nine-minute fiascos.

We started off brightly with some good passing and movement but it was still something of a surprise when Ben Gordon headed in a corner unchallenged. East Fife hadn’t really threatened when they equalised. Our defence failed to clear properly and the ball was swept across the six yard line to where Crawford couldn’t miss.

Our second was a peach, a great pass from Ryan McStay hit on the half turn by Scott Chaplain. The third was pure Del Boy. He thoroughly outpaced the defence, rounded the keeper and seemed about to pass to an unmarked player in the box from near the by-line but instead thumped it into the net. A bit like one of his goals in the 6-0 against Elgin last season.

Their second was one of those great strikes you can’t do much about. I suppose Chris Smith might have got more depth on the clearing header but if it had fallen to anyone else it wouldn’t have been a goal. It was a brilliant volley, an internationalist’s goal.

With twenty minutes to go we started to fade badly. Ryan McStay in particular looked all in. Only to be expected I suppose with the lack of games recently. But we held out.

The ref had a good game, letting it flow and only reaching into his pocket in the last ten minutes, more or less when he was forced to. None of the offenders could quibble. He might have given E Fife a pen in the first half when Ben Gordon seemed all over one of their attackers but there was something similar he could have given us late on so it maybe evens out.

Scarily, we’re only seven points off top spot.

PS: I wish Dr Jan would catch the ball rather than punch it; he did this several times today and it gave me kittens every time. He’s a good shot stopper, though. He had one great tip-over in the first half.