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St Mirren began this game quickly and took the lead from a St Mirren corner, John Sutton rose up above our defence and headed home and after only eight minutes St Mirren were one goal up. Seconds later and Airdrie were forced to make our first substitution Broadfoot and McDougall went up for a header and unfortunately Steven McDougall came down hard.
Brian McPhee came on to replace McDougall who managed to hobble off himself, always a good sign. Airdrie to put it politely looked lost for large portions of this game. With fans calling for Allan McManus's head as news about him signing a pre-season contract with St Johnstone began to circulate. The game also began to deteriorate long balls up and down the park, fouls all over the place and Airdrie players looking lost in the middle of the park. Twenty two minutes after he came on the park and Brian McPhee was off for an early shower. His first tackle of the match saw referee Kevin Toner producing a straight red. I was a soft tackle that Toner may have judged to be from behind, he may even have saw it as being retaliation for McDougall being carried off but it was soft, very soft.
St Mirren now with an extra man tried to push forward and kill the game off, but against a determined Airdrie team they were finding it very very hard. Chances from both teams went begging until Airdrie decided to play some real football. Stephen McKeown began the move that would see Airdrie equalise. McKeown forced is way through three players in a run across the mid-field his final pass found Willie McLaren who spotted Kevin Barkey on the right hand side in space. Barkey with a simple little lob found Bryan Prunty unmarked in the box his header could go no where else but into the net. Against the run of play and just before half-time Airdrie had equalised.
Lee Hollis had returned to the goal keeping position in today's match but only because Airdrie were forced to to make a very late change to the team list. In fact when Stephen Robertson was warming up he hurt his back and Airdrie had to get permission to use the team sheet before kick off. With it being so late referee Toner could have forced Airdrie to use the change as a substitution, thankfully he didn't.
The second half was to begin in the same way as the first St Mirren managed to get a scrappy when the Airdrie defence failed to clear our lines. John Sutton with a double and Airdrie had an up hill battle once again. For forty minutes both teams battled Airdrie for the equalising goal and St Mirren for the goal that would finish the match. With only ten men on the park and some of our high profile players posted missing through out the second half we held on.
Late on Airdrie had a chance to score when David Dunn sent over a cross, with Kevin Barkey coming in at the back post we were unlucky to see the ball cleared.
Match Preview by Chris Mac
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