Forfar Athletic 2 Clyde 1

SPFL League 1
Thursday 29 April 2021
Station Park, Forfar

It was the former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson who first claimed that a week was a long time in politics. But the same (okay, almost) can be true in football. Just nine days after going down 1-3 to fellow league one strugglers Clyde at Station Park, Forfar claimed a crucial three points against the same opposition with a 2-1 victory. It was the Loon’s first home victory of the season and a result that keeps alive - albeit just - hopes that they can avoid relegation to league two.

While Clyde remain six points ahead of Forfar with two games to play, two defeats for the Bully Wee and two wins for Forfar might just be enough for the pair to reverse their current positions in the table. As things stand, the goal difference in favour of Clyde is only five.

So anything remains possible for the battling Loons, who left it late to record their first home win of what has been a long, hard league campaign. Two minutes of injury time had already been played when Daniel Scally popped up with the winner. It was the winger’s second goal of the evening and only the second time this season that a Forfar player has scored twice in the same game.

All of which left interim player-coach Gary Irvine making some justifiably positive post-match noises.

“This is a better feeling than I had last week,” he said. “Credit to the players. We were organised, which was important in a game we knew would be difficult. But we believed in ourselves. That’s something I’ve been drumming into the players. We are a good team. And when we take our chances we can prove that. I’m delighted for the boys.

“We knew what we were up against tonight. Clyde have good players. But so do we. We just haven’t had that belief enough this season. We have always worked hard though and we did again tonight. We kept doing the right things, getting into wide areas and firing balls into their box. It was great to see so many bodies bursting themselves to get in there in an effort to win the game for us.”

And yes, Irvine remains defiant. While it remains arithmetically possible for the Loons to beat the drop, he and his men will keep fighting.

“There is definitely still belief that we can stay up,” Irvine continued. “As a professional, that’s what you do. You believe and you push right to the end. So when there is a possibility, you just have to believe in yourself. We go into Saturday now, knowing that all we can do is take care of our own result. Yes, we’ve fallen short this season. Mistakes have been made. But we are working hard to correct them. Myself and (coach) Tony Docherty are introducing new things and they are making a difference. The old mistakes are not happening, we saw some good stuff tonight and we got our reward. It was a great feeling to see that ball hit the net for the second goal.”

Speaking of which, Scally was another Loon with a smile on his face at the end of a match that saw Clyde take the lead after only 11 minutes.

“I thought the boys played really well,” said the goalscorer. “Especially in the first half. And yes, it was a relief to get the second goal when we did. I know the fans will be asking why we haven’t played like that all season, but all we can do is continue what we did tonight in the last two games and see where that takes us. We’re not down yet. It’s going to be a hard ask, but all we can do is our jobs and hope that is good enough. I’m glad to get the goals tonight, but it’s much more important that we got the three points.”

Six more in the next five days wouldn’t hurt either.