Lochend United 1-1 AS Airdrie

By C.McFarlane
February 12 2006

LOCHEND 1 AS AIRDRIE 1


a lacklustre performance from airdrie saw them escape easterhouse with a scarcely deserved point.

airdrie reverted back to their 3-5-2 system with rg and mark joining andy in the middle.with clarky back capaldi moved to the left side and hendrie started on the right after missing last week.

the first half found both sides creating little.airdrie passing was poor and they kept giving away possession.lochend had more of the play but their strikers were well marshalled at the back.both keepers had nothing to do for the first 20minutes but against the run of play airdrie took the lead.good pressure by gray on the number 5 saw him lose the ball and from gray,s pass across the box andy clark hammered into the net for 1-0.however airdrie never got going after this and finished the half on the back foot as lochend started pressing and looking for an opening.both sides weren,t helped by some strange decisions by the referee.lochend nearly equalised on half time when a scramble in the airdrie box was eventually thumped clear.

the second half was only started 2 minutes when gray nearly made it 2-0.good chasing saw him rob the lochend number 7 of the ball and after beating a couple of men fired just over the bar.it looked like airdrie were going to take control but it was lochend who would go on and dominate most of the half.the number 11 had a fine game for lochend and created a lot of problems down airdrie,s left hand side and on more than one occassion he created 2 or 3 half chances that airdrie,s defence just managed to deal with.however lochend got a deserved equaliser after 65minutes.a corner from the left was only half cleared and fell to the number 8 on the edge of the box and after turning clark fired a good shot which deflected of sonic into the bottom corner with johnny well beaten.airdrie were on the back foot and only a great save from johnny kept them at 1-1.airdrie brought atkin on for big mark and he made airdrie,s best chance in the second half.a brilliant turn around the number 12 saw him run on and release gray who,s shot from the edge of the box flew just wide.the last 15 minutes saw lochend press for the winner but airdrie defence just managed to hold out for the draw.1-1ft

to sum up lochend can maybe count themselves unfortunate they didn,t take all 3 points with a fighting display which belies their position in second bottom.the number 11 in particular had a fine game.airdrie,as mentioned at the start,struggled to get going for most of the game.too many players had an off day and our passing was particularly poor.but we will have days like this and at least we took a point whereas in the past we maybe would have lost.nxt wk will be another difficult game away to vale utd who won the league last yr.

team

j rowan

g drummond
g cooper
f burton

r hendrie
a edgar
r graham
m johnstone
g capaldi

a gray
a clark

s atkin for m johnstone
s graham for g capaldi
c macfarlane for r hendrie
g trench