| Strathclyde Saturday Morning League Division 1 | |
| 21 April 2007 Barlia Sports Complex |
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| Windlaw | 4 |
| Carey (2), McGinlay, Nugent | |
| Forest | 0 |
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Following Wednesday’s hammering at Greenbank, Windlaw made 5 changes to the starting line-up for Gary Wilson’s final game as Windlaw Manager before handing the reins onto Martin Kerr. Wullie Thornton was out due to work commitments and Alan Nugent, Allan Dougall, John McCabe and Davie McGinley were all on the bench and in came Zanda Dougall, Ian Baird, Eck McCaig, Wullie Wilson and Benny Carey into the starting line-up. Forest made it clear they were unhappy with the heavily sanded Barlia surface before kick-off as they warmed up on our notoriously dodgy astroturf pitch. Clearly, Barlia is in dire need of a revamp as we all agree, hopefully to bring it in line with the other bowling green surfaces in the League such as John Brown Pitches.
Windlaw tried to regain some much needed early confidence and passed it about well early on. It took only 15 minutes for the deadlock to be broken and Wullie Wilson was the supplier with a superb deep cross from the left-wing over the Forest central defence that was met by Benny Carey’s head and directly well into the keeper’s bottom left hand corner. After that, Windlaw were enjoying huge chunks of possession with Forest getting deeper and deeper towards their own penalty area. The second goal arrived on 33 minutes after a deep Kevin McCann corner was rescued by Benny Carey at the back end of the penalty box. Carey did superbly to cut inside a defender and his high cross-cum shot went over the Forest keeper’s outstretched arm and into the top end of his net. Superb work from the veteran striker on his return to the starting line-up that took him into double figures for the season. The Forest keeper had another few saves before half-time and that, allied to some sterling work by the Forest defence ensured Windlaw had only a two goal lead to show for their first-half superiority.
Half-Time: Windlaw 4 Forest 0
The second half pattern mirrored that of the first with Windlaw dominating possession. They were however finding it difficult to get in behind the Forest defence who were by now sitting on their own 18 yard box with only one man upfront. There was still a fear though that until Windlaw got the killer third goal, a Forest goal from one of their sporadic attacks could have got them unexpectedly back into the game. Substitute David McGinley though, put the game beyond Forest with the best goal of the game. Superb work between John McCabe and Alan Nugent down Windlaw’s left wing saw McCabe’s slide-rule cutback smashed home by McGinley’s hammer left foot into the roof of the net. It was truly game over now. The final rites to the game and Gary Wilson’s tenure came in the 85th minute when Alan Nugent hammered home from 6 yards after his initial close-range effort was parried back to him by the Forest keeper.
Full-Time: Windlaw 4 Forest 0
Verdict: An almost embarrisingly easy victory for Windlaw. Forest seemed content to pack the defence and put as many men as they could behind the ball in order to stifle the procession towards their goal. Forest had 2 corners in total and John Lunny had no save of any note during the 90 minutes. Windlaw passed it decently at times but could have done better and scored a few more. After the Greenbank humiliation on Wednesday, anything was an improvement. The day though, was all about the departing Windlaw Manager Gary Wilson. With Gary leaving for Australia on Monday, it was important that the Greenbank disaster was not his abiding memory of the players. We wish him and his family the very best and there’ll be some comfort in knowing that we’ll have some support from sunny Western Australia next Saturday morning while we slug it out in Cumbernauld.
Website Man Of The Match: Shug Neeson- was a true leader before, during and after this match and his leadership qualities just pipped two-goal Benny Carey to the award. Other noteable mentions go to Ian Baird and Colin Sinclair.
