| Strathclyde Saturday Morning League Division 1 | |
| 18 April 2007 Overlea Playing Fields |
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| Greenbank | 4 |
| Windlaw | 0 |
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Windlaw made three changes to the starting line-up from last week’s draw at Greenhills with Shug Neeson, Wullie Thornton and John McCabe replacing Zanda Dougall, Chris Kerr and Colin Carmichael with Carmichael dropping to the bench. The formation changed from the successful 3-5-2 to 4-4-2 with Wullie Thornton and Allan Dougall as full-backs. Greenbank had a trialist keeper Ross Cummings between the sticks.
For the second time in 7 days, Windlaw were caught up in another pre-match farce when the League revealed at 4pm that no referee had been allocated to the fixture. As both teams were again desperate to get the game played, Windlaw eventually managed to get Castlemilk referee John Harkins to take charge of the game at only 45 minutes notice. Both clubs should be very grateful to him for stepping in at the eleventh hour but such action should not be necessary and Windlaw will no longer help alleviate fixture congestion by playing mid-week fixtures as for the second time in 7 days, no proper provisions were provided by the League for supply of a referee. The Overlee playing surface was rutted and bumpy and would provide the ideal background for the rubbish that Windlaw were to serve up on it.
One of the most humiliating and astonishingly worst 45 minutes in Windlaw’s 16 year history then ensued. After 6 minutes, a punt towards the Windlaw box caused chaos when McInally’s attempted backheader was latched onto by Greenbank’s Dale who poked the ball over Lunny’s head before the keeper could collect. On 14 minutes, another shocking blunder by McInally who lost possession to Allan Stewart some 25 yards from goal and Stewart’s first time shot which looked regulation went into the middle of the net as Lunny seemed to be covering another area of the goal. On 22 minutes, yet another farcical mix-up between McInally and Dougall down Windlaw’s right resulted in an easy cross and finish to put Greenbank 3-0 up and almost out of sight. On 31 minutes, came the fourth when Roy Dale took advantage of more slapstick Windlaw defending to cross for another easy finish for one of his team-mates. Unbelievable! With due respect to Greenbank, they’ll probably not remember the last time they were 4-0 up in this league having struggled badly in the last 2 seasons. Still, seldom will they have come up against clown defending as this so often. Their front two of Roy Dale and Allan Stewart were tearing the Windlaw defence to pieces. At the other end Windlaw were missing the obligatory 5 or 6 golden chances to score but it would be best to concentrate on the defensive disasters in this horror show of 45 minutes.
Half-Time: Greenbank Utd 4 Windlaw 0
The second half was basically played out as if Windlaw were in a state of shock sifting through the wreckage of the first-half. Few clear-cut chances were created but there was a scare when Greenbank’s central defenders Smith and Kermack’s cigars looked to be burning out. Carmichael, Carey and Baird replaced McCabe, Dougall and McGinlay but there was little else to report other than a McGinlay header which was bundled off the line. Eck McCaig and Wullie Wilson who remained on the bench would have been glad to have been spared the indignity of this.
Full-Time: Greenbank Utd 4 Windlaw 0
Verdict: A truly disgusting performance that nobody seen coming at all.
Website Man Of The Match: Windlaw did not have a single player who looked remotely worthy of wearing the jersey.
