By Neil Brown
November 24 2007

AS Airdrie 3-0 Whinhall United

Two Goals from Kenny Pardoe and one from Gary Capaldi see Airdrie into League Cup Semi Final.

Rowan

Milne Stewart R.Graham

S.Graham Edgar Smith K.Pardoe N.Pardoe

Gray Capaldi

A solid win today at a windy Lochend with some good spells for Airdrie, not as good as we have been in recent weeks but enough to get us through this tie. A good dummy from Neil Pardoe allowed Gray to get an early cross in which Scott Graham was just inches away from, Capldi had a similar chance with later from the opposite side he just narrowly missed getting on the end of the cross. Rowan meantime was relatively untroubled in the early stage. The opening goal came from good Airdrie pressure and as the keeper flapped at a cross the ball broke to the edge of the box  where Kenny Pardoe drilled it low through the ruck of bodies into the net.

Airdrie added a second not long after when Capaldi's flicked header, again after a good spell of pressure, looped over the keeper for a two nil half time lead.

No changes for the second half and the next goal was all important. Whinhall stepped up a bit and looked to take the game to Airdrie in an attempt to get back in to things, However Airdrie know how to defend and in Capaldi and Gray we have two strikers who can hold us up or get in behind the defence which Gray did on a couple of occasions firstly sprinting away from his marker and forcing the keeper into a good save, on the second occasion he lost his marker and bore down on goal but the ball held up under his feet and Whinhall managed to scrape it away however Capaldi was on hand to collect the loose ball and was brought down from behind by the desperate challenge of the Whinhall defence but the ref waved away Airdrie's penalty claims. The game should have been done and dusted as we entered the final twenty minutes but a goal for the away team would change that and by this time they had made a few changes to do just that. kenny Pardoe settled the game with the aid of the away keeper who was caught napping by Pardoe's speculative 20 yard effort and the ball crepped in at the near post. Airdrie shut up shop by introducing Murray and Burton for K.pardoe and S.Graham however they still created 3 or 4 chances on the counter, kenny hit the bar with a cross cum shot just before he left the field and Smith was inches away from getting on to Capaldi's cross, not to be outdone Neil Pardoe also rattled the bar in the closing moments but no more goals were to come.

A semi final to look forward to and a chance to put the ghost of the last one to bed. A decent performance from thew whole team Scott Graham doing particularly well having not featured recently. Rowans handling again was excellent and dealt with all that was thrown at him including a late chance for Whinhall blocking with his legs at the strikers feet. My MOM award this week though go's to Gary Capaldi whoose hold up play is essential to the way we play, linked well with Gray and was always an option for forward passses well done staying off the sauce on a friday has it's rewards!!