Stirling Albion 1 Forfar Athletic 0
The ‘Loons’ unbeaten league run came to an end on matchday six when they lost 1-0 to Stirling Albion at Forthbank yesterday afternoon, courtesy of a goal from the home side with nine minutes of the ninety remaining.
To be fair whereas last week at Starks Park they could have little complaint about the final outcome, there would be obvious disappointment at the end product on Saturday.
Albion perhaps just edged the first half with Marc McCallum bringing off a trio of stunning saves, but the Athies undoubtedly dominated the first half-hour of the second period, but the old adage was proved correct yet again. If you don’t put the ball in the net, you cannot win football matches!
Manager Gary Irvine made two changes to his starting line-up from the previous week’s cup tie, Stefan McCluskey and Matthew Aitken replacing Gary Harkins and Steven Doris, while most recent acquisition Jamie Ness made his league debut in the ‘engine room.’
The substantial travelling support were off their seats as early as the second minute of the contest, a Craig Slater strike from the edge of the box being brilliantly tipped onto the post by home custodian Blair Currie.
His counterpart Marc McCallum then distinguished himself thwarting Dale Carrick on two occasions and Dylan Mackin before just on the stroke of halftime, Ross Meechan saw a shot from the edge of the box go tantalising just wide of the ‘woodwork.’
The visitors had an early second-half scare as Jack Leitch went close, but then they took a real grip on proceedings.
Stefan McCluskey saw a shot go just the wrong side of the post, Matthew Aitken failed to make the most of a couple of genuine scoring opportunities, before Craig Thomson clean through on goal saw Currie smother his net bound effort, undoubtedly the best chance of the match.
Sadly Forfar were made to pay for those misses when substitute Dylan Bikey who had replaced the injured former ‘Loon’ Daniel Scally in the 16th minute hooked the ball home from close range following a right-wing corner, to net what was the only goal of a hard-fought contest, perhaps summed up by the match stats which showed both teams had eleven direct shots on goal, five apiece on target.
There were positives and negatives to take out of the ninety minutes as is often the case for Gary and his management team, but all will hope that the ‘shooting boots’ can be sharpened up for next Saturday’s visit to Cowdenbeath, prior to a return to Station Park on the 25th of the month when Albion Rovers will be the visitors.
In the overall scheme of things in the cinch league2 yesterday, Stirling were in fact the only team in the top four to pick up all three points, a late leveller seeing leaders Kelty Hearts salvage a point at home to Elgin City, while Annan lost out at home to Stenhousemuir.
The ‘Loons’ sit in fourth spot on nine points now five behind Kelty and just above fifth-placed Edinburgh City on goal difference.
Forfar’s line up at Forthbank was;- McCallum, Meechan, Strachan, S. Anderson, Travis, Slater, Ness (Gallagher), McCluskey, Thomson (Doris), G. Anderson (Crossan), Aitken (Shepherd)
Subs not used – Hussain, Thomas, Irvine, Harkins, Sanderson
Attendance - 508
