Match Day vs Rangers (H)
Monday July 12th 1999 by Roving Ross Lafferty
Final Score Saints 2 Rangers 1 by Roving Ross
Only a friendly. No doubt
that will be their excuse but was it that when Jorg Albertz gave them the lead
after 78 minutes?
Was it hell!
You see that’s the way it is with the blue bigots- they only sing when they’re
winning- but no matter what they say, I feel good,I feel sooooooooooo good.
The fact that the “little gen....dwarf” Advocaat walked away in a huff when
Steven McGarry -God, he doesn’t half pick his moments- scored the winner only
made it even sweeter.
It was all Saints deserved having outfought and outplayed what was basically a
first choice huns side.Amoruso being the only notable absentee..... in fact, no,
Daniel Prodan was missing as well.
New signings Jaap Stam.....sorry, Scott Walker and Ian Ross made their debuts
for Saints and it was Ross who had the first real chance of the match.Great
interplay between Tom Brown and Mr.Slim Mark Yardley put the new boy through on
goal only for his left footed shot to be saved superbly by Lionel Charbonnier.
If this was the first chance of the match it was Rangers who had the best one.
Substitute Gabriel (T)Amato twisted and turned in the box before playing the
ball across goal to Rod Wallace who blasted over from a full ONE yard.
After the break- with the introduction of McGarry for Brown and for Rangers one
DOB for another- the game started to open up and both sides were creating some
good chances but the game remained goal less until the rather overweight looking
Albertz scored with 12 minutes remaining.
Rod Wallace received the ball from Amato.....ach feck it,the Daily Ranger’s
probably covered this goal enough already.
Well anyway,the huns went crazy and for the first time in the match I realised
there was any fans in the Caledonia Stand.
Seven minutes later and they disappeared again.The second best French goalkeeper
in scotland, Charbonnier, made a hash of a passback and gave the ball away to
Junior Mendes 20 yards out.Junior found his way to goal blocked... actually I’ll
rephrase that,Junior found Craig Moore standing in front of him so played the
ball through to McGarry who struck a sweet, sweet, sweeeeet left foot shot high
past the French clown and into the net.
A draw, we all thought, was fair enough but the best was yet to come.A corner
from the right caused problems in the Rangers box before the ball fell to
McGarry who’s shot hit some overpaid foreigner in the arm.Penalty?Jeez,this is
the stuff of dreams.
Now the big question.Who was going to hit it?Shuggie - why bother blessing
yourself out with the huns view?- the tim who was desperate for a
goal?Nope.Kerr?NopeYards?Nope.McGarry?Right footed, Charbonnier's left hand side
and welcome to heaven.
“Celebrate Good Times........”
St.Mirren: Roy, Nicolson (Robinson), Kerr, Turner (Baltacha), McLaughlin,
Walker, Murray, Ross (Rudden), Brown (McGarry), Mendes, Yardley
Huns: Charbonnier, Adamczuk, Moore, Wilson, Vidmar, B.Ferguson, Reyna, Van
Bronckhorst, Mols, Wallace, McCann(Greenock born tim that plays for
Rangers-Satan in disguise?) Subs:I.Ferguson, G.Amato, J.Albertz, A.Numan, Dunno,
Forget, Who cares?
Sizzling Saint:
Not one player in black and white gave a poor show,especially in defence where
Scott Walker in particular was outstanding but who else could I give it to but Steven
McGarry?He only played half
the game but two well taken goals gave us a win that will stick in the memory
for a while to come.