Clydebank 1
East Kilbride Th 3
Central League Cup (2nd Round)

Match Report

Well it’s not often you see your own team mates fighting with each other. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen two Clydebank players throw punches at each other but that’s what happened tonight. The flashpoint happened just after East Kilbride had taken the lead. Reece Pearson having his now trademark anonymous game played a dreadful pass to Ryan Deas that was intercepted setting up an attack for the visitors. Deas subsequently fouled the Thistle player resulting in a second yellow card. Deas didn’t even look at the ref to receive his card, instead turning to face down Pearson. At the time I thought Deas, obviously blaming Pearson for his red card, would be ushered away by other players, but before anyone could react the two players were throwing punches at each other. Both players were sent off. In retrospect, Deas didn’t really need to foul the East Kilbride player, but having done so he blamed Pearson. From my point of view, it seemed that Deas reaction was out of frustration. You don’t lose the rag over one incident. This must have been boiling under for some time, and in my opinion it is due to the lack of any effective support from Pearson to Deas in the midfield. I have said in previous reports that Pearson is a liability. He has been subbed at half time twice at half time in recent weeks, and he must have been close to it again tonight. In no way can Deas actions be condoned even if I can understand where it came from. The repercussions from this will be interesting to see.

This incident pretty much killed the game as a contest, as East Kilbride got their reward once the Bankies began to tire. But to go back to the beginning, this match was switched to Holm Park in the early afternoon, presumably as there is some kind of problem with East Kilbride’s Show Park. The visitors were probably the better side overall in the first half as the Bankies were disappointing. There was not much in the way of goal scoring opportunities for either side. The visitors did take the lead two minutes after the break when Gray had a free header from a corner kick. At this stage, I still thought the Bankies would prevail, but the red cards put paid to that.

For the next fifteen minutes the Bankies actually played very well with the nine men, and East Kilbride looked a tad on the nervy side. It was no real surprise when the equaliser came on the hour. A ball played forward broke kindly for John Cunningham, who blasted the ball into the next from the edge of the box leaving Meek rooted to the spot. Bankies fans were starting to think they might just be able to do this, but it was not to be.

Slowly but surely, Thistle started to make the two man advantage count. Shortly before they took the lead in the 75th minute, they had a shot come off the post. When the goal came it was a scrappy affair with Morrison blocking a shot at the back post that fell kindly to Ryan who tapped into the empty net. Before the Bankies could recover, East Kilbride scored again. A cross to the back post was headed into the net. From my vantage point, it looked like it was John Cunningham who put the ball into his own net under pressure.

And that was game over.

Match report written by Stuart McBay