SPFL Tier 4, The Rock, 21/3/26.

Another welcome win: three on the bounce at home now. But we weren’t quite as fluid as against Spartans two weeks before.

The first half was largely forgettable with us playing too many hopeful long balls always liable to be gobble dup by Annan’s back line and Annan themselves pretty toothless. They dived at every opportunity and moaned a lot at the ref and lino. I find those sorts of things a difficult watch. They weren’t the only mysterious decisions they made either.

There was really nothing to speak about in the way of goal efforts apart from their keeper making a brilliant save from Michael Doyle’s close range volley from a great Alexander Smith cross.

It looked as if things might peter out as a 0-0 draw till we suddenly scored. Scott Honeyman went through one-on-one with the keeper whose save squirmed away from him and Scott managed to poke the loose ball home despite the attentions of a defender.

Then a corner resulted in Leighton McIntosh drilling the ball in for the second.

We could have done with another to make sure of the three points but we began to sit back and let them dominate possession. This was made worse by manager Frank McKeown’s substitutions. Ryan Blair coming on for Honeyman on 75 minutes and proceeding to do very little before Jack Duncan and Ally Roy replaced front two McIntosh and Scott Tomlinson late on which immediately reduced our threat. Smith and Doyle were hooked for Tony Wallace and Gordon Walker on the verge of added time. This disrupted our organisation even further and most likely contributed to Annan’s late goal. Thankfully too late to give them much hope of an equaliser, but it was unneccessary.

Home again next week but without two players away on International duty. Not something a Sons fan can say often. Ali Omar is off to play for Somalia in an Afcon qualifier while Alexander Smith is with Scotland’s under 19s.

Africa Cup of Nations, Final, 11^th November National Stadium, Luanda, 31/1/10

A forgettable first half, followed by an upturn in the last twenty minutes as Ghana started to push forward having restricted Egypt and making them resort to handballs and falling over in the penalty area.

The goal when it came was a beauty, though; exquisitely taken by Gedo.

Ghana may be dark horses in the World Cup if they forsake the caution they showed here. They’ll have a fair few experienced players back by then.

Strange that Egypt are so strong in the Cup of Nations and can’t seem to qualify for the bigger event.

Africa Cup of Nations, Semi-final, Ombaka National Stadium, Benguela, 28/1/10

Well: if the first sending-off ruined the game, the second killed it as a spectacle.

Full of incident of course:-
four goals, three sendings off, a player seeming to try to headbutt the ref. I’ve never seen that before. (But I don’t frequent the parks much.)

Egypt were the better team in the first half but only because Algeria were happy to sit back and not take the game to them. The last ten minutes of the half were something else.

Seems like refs are refs the world over.

The first sending off was harsh as the booking before had been for nothing. It was compounded by the way the penalty was taken, though. I was under the impression that the taker could not stop in the run-up to the kick; which Hosny did. The Algerian keeper appealed for the infringement which wasn’t given, while the goal was. (He should have played to the whistle of course.) I’ve looked at the law relating to penalties on FIFA’s site. No mention of the taker not being allowed to feint in the run-up. Did they change this sometime recently?

The keeper lost the heid, which he then tried to put on the ref but he was only booked.

At the start of the second half Algeria were looking quite good to make a game of it, pushing forward in a way they hadn’t at eleven men apiece, but the Egyptian second goal – lovely finish by Zidan – obviously made Belhadj lose his cool. At nine men and two goals down there’s not much hope. The game was done.

By the end it had degenerated into farce with the ref making up for not sending the keeper off by …… sending him off.

“Football. Bloody Hell.”