By Stomp Admin
August 15 2010

The concourse was full of "we are not out of this yet!" "These boys can still get something from this!" We were losing yet Airdrie fans were.................happy! The second half was always going to be dominated by Ayr; Airdrie with only ten men would have our backs against the wall.

Jimmy made a change Harry McGregor replaced winger Frazer Keast opting for a natural left back and so the match continued. It was an attacking match with Ayr having long periods on the ball but Airdrie still had half chances to pull back the one goal deficit.

On 73 minutes Mark Roberts scored his second goal of the match and that should have silenced the Airdrie fans, instead his celebration nearly caused a riot, it was simply a shhhh sign nothing inflammatory but it was enough to send us over the edge, the celebration by the members of the ex-Airdrie club incensed us and that fed back to the team.

2 minutes later Phil Johnston was replaced by Donnelly and it was game on. A simple 50/50 ball forced Ayr manager Reid to make his first change, Easton left the pitch with blood pouring from his head after the clash of head and we wish him a speedy recovery.....Yes we do, honestly! Connolly was his replacement. From where I sit you could hear the collision and it was a sign of things to come.

“David Crawford was then sent off for Ayr after a foul on Ryan Donnelly” that is how the BBC website reports it; the World Wrestling Federation reported it as “A well timed elbow slam to the face.”  Either way the near side lines man and the ref saw it as a red card and Crawford walked.

Reid was that confused by the decision that he nearly forgot to make a substitution which would have been funny. Finally with the replacement keeper (McWilliams) in place he was given his first duty of the afternoon – to collect the ball from the back of the net.

On 83 minutes Roberts incensed the Airdrie fans yet again, by pretending not to hear the call to substitute him wasting more time.We felt like justice had been done on 85 minutes when Airdrie got the equaliser we deserved, Donnelly beat Keenan to the ball and fired past McWilliams.

Simply put Referee Nicholls had simply lost the plot between speaking to Lumber earlier in the match, sending off Ayr’s assistant and now sending off our own physio things were about to get worse! You know it’s a poor decision when even the opposition player is defending your player. Wallace who had replaced Watt on 61 minutes went in a little bit late and missed Keenan by a distance, Nicholls didn’t see it that way and produced a red card as I said above, Keenan (of Ayr) tried to defend the challenge by Wallace but Nicholls simply ignored him, I sense an appeal in the near future.

The only disappointment of the whole match was it ended.

I watched the Billy Connolly Tour of Scotland program when it was on TV and in one of the episodes he said something along the lines of “An audience in Scotland wait for you to entertain them, if you do that they will respond.” Airdrie fans have been waiting to be entertained for five plus years and now we are responding.