New Douglas Park

By Graham Barnstaple
October 20 2012

Hamilton’s winless home run continued this afternoon when the slumped to a 1-2 defeat to Livingston in a match crammed with talking points.

The three goals were all scored in the opening nine minutes, with Accies opening the scoring within the opening minute. Stevie May, on loan from St. Johnstone, somehow found space in the box to fire a shot high past Andy McNeil.

The lead didn’t last long, with Livi back on level terms after only four minutes. Stefan Scoigall pounced on some slack play by the home side when fired a shot past Kevin Cuthbert. The visitors were in the lead in nine minutes, this time it was Marc McNulty who was the beneficiary of poor Accie defending.

The first half flowed backwards and forwards with both goal keepers forced to pull off top class saves to keep the scoreline the same. The most impressive probably being a save from McNeil as he stopped a shot from Ali Crawford from soaring into the top right hand corner.

Both sides had further chances in the opening stages of the second half but it came to light when Alex Neil was shown a red card on 70 minutes. He let his frustration get the better of him as he lunged off the ground on twoLivingstonplayers.

Both managers felt afterwards the tackle was a red card given the current laws, but felt the law was pushing tackling out of the game. Hughes said, “we will soon be playing the game in our slippers.”

There was another red card only four minutes later when Kevin McCann was shown a second yellow, and this time there was no complaints about the decision.

Accies fans were left fuming with the ref in the dying minutes as he denied what looked like two stone wall penalties. Both were on Stevie May and from where I was sitting both looked like certainties, and George Salmon may be sitting tonight how he got the decisions wrong.

This was an entertaining game for the 943 fans who bothered to turn up and should hopefully see more come back to see more of the same.