By Gary McKenzie
November 14 2004

Scottish Football League Division Three, Saturday 13 November 2004, Links Park, Montrose. MONTROSE 2 (Webster (61, 87)) QUEEN'S PARK 4 (Carroll (1). Ferry (13, 70), Harvey (22))

This game had a sense of history about it. Montrose's 125th anniversary dinner meant that some of the great names of Montrose FC were in the crowd, including Alec Stuart and Les Barr. The game was against the oldest club in Scotland, Queen's Park, and the mild-mannered Glesga-patter merchants had made their way from the middle-class areas to be with us. With Montrose sitting proudly in third spot behind the nouveau riche of the third division, surely we would win...

The match took all of thirty seconds to come alive. From the kick off, Queen's attacked down the left wing and Carroll met the cross with his head to put the Spiders one up.

A shell-shocked Montrose tried to rally and Webster had a shot blocked in 2 minutes.Sharp then forced a corner after good passing in midfield. His cheeky back-heel almost equalised for the Mo but it was saved.

Queen's Park looked up for the task and thought they'd scored when Clark followed up after Butter made a one handed save, but he was given offside.

Sharpy could have dne better when he cut in from the wing and blasted a shot over the bar.

However it was Queen's who made the Mo pay for poor defending when Ferry got on the end of a long cross from the right to head home at the far post.

Sharpy was proving to be the Mo's best hope of a goal and he headed wide form a great Webster cross on 19 minutes.

Queen's Park, though, effectively sealed the three points after only 22 minutes. They were awarded a free kick just outside the box and Harvey curled a fine shot past Butter.

I must admit to losing interest at this point. A quarter of the match gone and already three down. I spent the next twenty minutes thinking about my halftime pie, and only Smarty's header off the bar with seconds remaining distracted me from that thought.

Amazingly, certainly for Montrose, the same teams came out for the second period. Surely it couldn't be any worse than the first.

I haven't mentioned the referee once so far, and he had a pretty good first half. However, Mr Freeland always seems to like to get a bit of a mention and he began making some bizarre decisions that mystified both sets of supporters.

On 50 minutes, Sharp was the first yellow of the game for a foul. He was followed into the book 10 minutes later by Ferry, again for a bad foul.

On 61 minutes, Kevin Webster gave the home fans a glimmer of hope when he slotted it home after a great move.

With sections of the home fans shouting for Hall to be substituted after he failed to challenge for a ball when he was one on one with the keeper, Henry Hall decided to ignore them and send on Dodds and Slater for Donachie, who had again been booked for dissent - this is becoming a bit of a habit, Barry - and Stevie Kerrigan.

Ferry wrapped it all up (again) for Queen's when he blasted the ball home after a goalmoouth scramble with 20 minutes left.

Sharpy trooped off to be replaced by Watson and then Felvus replaced veteran Ally Graham for the jubilant Spiders.

With four minutes to go, Kev Webster scored one of the goals of the season when he ram half the length of the pitch to score a fantastic goal and restore some respectability.

The only other action of note was that Blair came on for Clark for Queen's.

Everybody's due an off day, I suppose, and this was certainly that. I wonder what the Montrose "celebrities" made of it.

We can take our minds off this one next week when we take on local rivals Forfar at Station Park in the Cup.

Teams

Montrose

Butter, Donachie, Ferguson, Doyle, Stephen, Kerrigan, Webster, Smart, Wood, Hall, Sharp

Subs: Dodds, Watson, Spink, Slater, Hankinson

Queen's Park

Crawford, Trouton, Malloy, Reilly, Sinclair, Harvey, Kettlewell, Clark, Graham, Carroll, Ferry

Subs: Rushford, Felvus, Blair, Bonnar, McGovern

Other Reports

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_div_1/4000881.stm
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/report?id=153278&cc=5739
http://www.montrose-mad.co.uk/news/loadrprt.asp?cid=MTCH&id=187912