Mark McGeown
Kevin Christie, Alan McManus, Neil McGowan, Paul Lovering
Jerome Vareille, Marvin Wilson, David Dunn, Mark Roberts
Owen Coyle, Stephen McKeown

A few pre-season knocks forced Sandy to choose a team that won't represent our starting line up for the start of the new season.

Airdrie started the game and were were quickly of the mark some good passing play between to mid-field and attack and Owen Coyle slotted the ball easily in to the back of the net. 1-0 only minutes on the clock and it looked like Airdrie were going to have a comfortable game. The second goal came from Mark Roberts, left un marked on the left side of the goal, Owen Coyle chipped the ball to him and Roberts volleyed the ball spectacularly  into the back of the net. The third goal came from Jerome Varielle and by the looks of things the game was over. Until Allan McManus kicked a ball straight to the feet of an Elgin attacker making the score 3-1 at half time. If McManus made a mistake like this in a game his head would have been on the chopping block, maybe harsh but  we would have slaughtered him.

The second half, OUCH! We started with the same team that began the first half and continued to push forward, but it soon became evident we had two teams. Willie Wilson replaced Kevin Christie,  Marvin Wilson was replaced by Stephen McKenna and finally Stephen McKeown was replaced by Kevin Barkey. Still Airdrie could not break Elgin down and some poor defending by the mid-field led to Elgins second goal, with space in  the mid-field and no-one closing down the ball was fired in to the back of the net from way outside the penalty box.

The game trundled to a finish and we can now look forward to playing Hearts on Saturday.

The first half was impressive if only against a third division team but in the second half we were lacking in fitness and we need to be sharper.

From only seeing last nights game as most of us have suspected i would say we need some height and strength in the centre of mid-field.