By Neil Brown
April 1 2007

Forest 1-7 AS Airdrie

Airdrie responded from last week’s disappointment with a resounding victory over forest at john brown playing fields. A brace each from Clark and Pardoe along with efforts from s graham, Kenny and Capaldi saw the men from Airdrie head home with an easy three points.
2 changes from last week saw Hendrie return in goal and Clark start up front with R Graham, N Pardoe, Kenny and Capaldi making positional changes. With rowan and the injured Thomson the only players missing Airdrie had a full complement for the first time in a few weeks giving Neily good options on the sideline.
the game nearly saw 2 goals inside the first minute. Airdrie could have scored after 15 seconds when Gray robbed the forest defender but he fired narrowly wide then from the resultant goal kick a break down the right saw Stewart failing to clear and as a result the ball fired across the goal saw the striker knock the ball wide from 6 yards. Airdrie had most of the play in the first half and took the lead after 15minutes.good build up play found Stewart breaking forward and from his speculative effort toward goal saw the keeper drop an easy take and Clark reacted first to head home the opening goal. Hendrie in goals had a quiet first half as forest were well managed by Airdrie’s defence. Airdrie made it 2 after 25 minutes. Again nice build up play eventually found Kenny Pardoe down the right and his great delivery into the box found his brother at the back post who bulleted a header into the net from 6 yards. Airdrie nearly made it three when Gray turned his man on the edge of the box and fired a goal bound strike that forced the keeper to pull off a fine save. the next 10 minutes saw forest have their best spell in the first half without troubling Airdrie too much.5 minutes before half time Airdrie made it 3-0.a pass from Scott down the right took a nice deflection from a forest player straight to Gray and from his ball across the edge of the box a forest defender failed to clear and Pardoe knocked the ball into the goal from 10 yards.
3-0 at half time saw no changes to Airdrie line up but with the manager telling the guys to keep up the pressure and not allow forest back into the game.
The second half saw a quiet opening with forest having the better of the play. Within 10 minutes Airdrie made their first sub with smith on for Edgar who hadn’t recovered from an ankle knock he sustained in the first half. With half an hour to play Airdrie made it four. Good play found Kenny at the edge of the box and his strike saw the keeper save only for the rebound to fall to Capaldi to finish from 8 yards. Airdrie made their second change with Morrison on for Gray but within seconds forest had pulled a goal back. A soft free kick awarded 20 yards from goal saw the players strike well saved from Hendrie but the rebound saw only forest players waiting to finish off the chance. Airdrie then made their last change with Burton on for n Pardoe. Airdrie made it 5-1.a long throw from r graham saw cooper knock the ball to the back post and Scotty graham headered home from 2 yards for his first goal in about 3 years(need to check the records on that one).forest were a disheartened team by now and Airdrie looked like scoring anytime they came forward. Chances fell to Clark, Kenny and capaldi but none were taken. And Airdrie had to wait until the last 7 or 8 minutes to score the last two goals of the game. Number 6 came about when a ball from Clark found Kenny in on goal and after beating the last defender he drew the keeper off his line and tucked the ball into the corner. Number 7 arrived with a couple of minutes to play with a ball into the box missed by the forest defence and fall to Kenny again. after three miscues the ball broke to Clark who got his second form about 6 yards to finish the scoring.
from forest point of view they will be disappointed by the goals they lost and their overall performance and have a big fight on their hands to try and stay away from relegation. We wish them well the rest of the season.
Airdrie responded well from last week. The goals came rather easily but the opportunities were put away and seven goals are good going. The play was fine at times with the ball getting knocked about on a difficult surface. The 2 back kicks gave Airdrie good width and the whole team worked hard for the best part of the game. That’s 5 wins out of 6 since the Greenhill’s match in January and 23 goals scored. With 9 games to go Airdrie can look forward to beating last years total of 35 points and finishing higher than 7th which they achieved last year.
I would also like to mention the great attitude taken by our captain on being on the bench for about the first time ever. While he would have been disappointed about it, and hopefully he was, if more people had his attitude the team would be a lot better for it and he certainly went up in my regard for his attitude and commitment and showed why he is captain.

Team:4-4-2

Hendrie
S.Graham Stewart Cooper R.Graham
Capaldi Edgar K.Pardoe N.Pardoe
Gray Clark

Subs
Smith for Edgar (55)
Morrison for Gray(70)
Burton for N.Pardoe (75)
Khorasani (Unused)