McLaren Gone!

STRANRAER	1-2	AIRDRIE UNITED
Sharp (28 min)	1-1	McKeown (36), Gow (72 min)

The end of the season and what a dramatic end to it for the two teams involved on Saturday. Blues boss Billy McLaren supposedly had handed in his resignation prior to the match as he felt it was the right thing to do.

Stranraer were trying to avoid relegation to Division Three for the first time in their history and badly needed all three points to do this. Airdrie however, were hoping that Brechin would slip up at Hamilton and they could get the three points that would ensure First Division football for the North Lanarkshire side.

Airdrie enjoyed the better of the opening exchanges in the first half but only in the number of chances created. Stephen McKeown and Jerome Veraille both had decent chances but seemed a bit too eager and thus their poor efforts were easily dealt with by Willie McCulloch. Stranraer's first real chance fell to Ian Harty which went wide and then Allan Jenkins had a good shot blocked.

It was Stranraer who opened the scoring silencing the huge Airdrie support (easily the biggest travelling support of the season outwith Motherwell) in 28th minute. After good work from Kevin Finlayson his resulting cross was diverted to Lee Sharp who turned well, controlled it and then thundered his shot into the corner from a tight angle past former Stranraer keeper Mark McGeown.

Airdrie fought back just 8 minutes later when Paul Ronald got to the byeline and headed the ball back into the path of the inrushing Stephen McKeown who controlled the ball and then on the volley cracked an unstoppable shot past McCulloch to make Airdrie level.

Just before half-time recently out of favour and top scorer for Stranraer Ian Harty should have put Stranraer 2-1 at the interval but he wasted the great chance from only a few yards out.

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The second half was fairly even until news filtered through from Hamilton that the Accies had scored two goals. This spurred on the Diamonds encouraged by the noise made from there app. 1000 fans. Paul Ronald almost scored against one of his former clubs after a breakaway when McKeown's low cross just evaded him at the far post.

Airdrie kept going and the winner arrived in the 72nd minute when substitute Alan Gow broke through a couple of tackles before hitting the net from close range.

Shortly after the goal there was an angry exchange which resulted in Jenkins and Moore booked along with Diamonds player-manager Sandy Stewart. The game petered out with narrow escapes at either end but Airdrie were in great spirits believing that they were promoted because tannoy announcer Jim Bark said the final result was Hamilton 2 Brechin 1 only because of the way some of the Airdrie directors were celebrating. Only a couple of minutes later armed with the proper confirmation that Airdrie didn't want to hear was that Brechin's Chris Templeman had scored an injury time leveller that insured that Brechin would be promoted along with Raith to Division One. The Blues players already slumped on the Stair Park turf were joined in their grief by Airdrie's disappointment.

After the match Billy McLaren didn't have much to say about the result but he did apologise to his players and the committee for their poor run of late. Billy felt sorry for the fans who have witnessed their club reaching the Quarter Finals of the Scottish Cup for the first time but also being relegated for the first time.

Man of the Match: TBA

Overall Summary: A day of what might have been for both sets of fans but in Stranraer's case the other results didn't go our way anyway. A case of bad luck to AUFC just like what happened to Stranraer at Stenhousemuir 10 years ago. The end of an era for Stranraer and what dramas will the new set up at Stair Park bring us. Manager Billy McLaren brought us some good excitement through good cup runs but it was the league form that cost him in the end. Very often promising starts would lead to a poor run of form after the New Year and saw us trying to avoid relegation which was disappointing considering that in my opinion the pool of players wasn't that bad. Hopefully now the punters will come back and we'll see a progressive Stranraer FC in the years to come. C'Mon the Blues - Here's to winning Division Three.

Team / Formation:

McCulloch
Gaughan		Wingate			Wright
Finlayson	Aitken			Curran				Sharp
Jenkins
Moore				Harty

Subs

• D. Farrell for H. Curran (58)

Subs not used: Jonathon Crawford, Andy Scott, Andy Kane, John Hillcoat

Attendance: 1325

Referee: S. Conroy

Stranraer Bookings:

Jenkins (75), Moore (75).

Airdrie United: Mark McGeown, Paul Armstrong, Sandy Stewart, Lee Gardner, Neil McGowan, William Wilson, Marvyn Wilson, Stephen Docherty, Stephen McKeown, Paul Ronald, Jerome Vareille.
Substitutes: Peter Cherrie, Darren Miller, David Dunn, Alan Gow, Martin Glancy.

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