By Chris Mac
July 21 2005

Airdrie lost to Motherwell in a friendly match as per usual, however looking at the preview from yesterday we can see that Airdrie, in recent years, have a habit of loosing these insignificant games yet when it counts pull a win out of the bag.

Airdrie started tonight's match the brighter of the two North Lanarkshire teams in the first 10 minutes of the first half Garry Twigg came close to opening the scoring with a decent header from a Brian McPhee cross. A corner a few minutes later put Motherwell keeper David Smith under some pressure. From then on Motherwell seemed to take a grip of themselves and started pushing back. Lee Hollis was forced to pull of a fine save as Jim Hamilton headed towards the back post. But it was goal scorer David Clarkston who was pressurising the Airdrie defence, his pace through the middle and down the right hand side was keeping Neil McGowan and Alan McManus busy.

The opening goal came when Jim Hamilton passed through the centre of the Airdrie defence splitting Alan McManus and And Dowie and leaving them lagging behind David Clarkston made a sprint in to the Airdrie United penalty area. Clarkston who poorly controlled the initial pass and looked liked he may miss managed to fumble the ball under the sprawling Lee Hollis and open the scoring. Thirty six minutes gone and Motherwell were one - nil up.

Airdrie made no changes at half time compared to Motherwell's three and the second half began and ended with Airdrie United in control, some good passing followed by no direction in front of goal seemed to be the order of play. The goal deficit was increased to two, Lee Hollis pulled of a good save from Motherwell's Shaun Fagan only to see the ball drop to none other than David Clarkston on the edge of the penalty area. Clarkston calmly lobbed Hollis as the defence rushed back to support but a little too late and Airdrie were down two - nil.
The closest Airdrie really came to scoring was in the last few minutes when Steven McDougal managed to put is some decent crosses from the right hand side. Mark Roberts glancing header was claimed easily by the Motherwell Keeper to keep the door firmly shut.