Ayr United  (H)  Bells League Championship - Saturday December 18th 1999  Match report by Roving Ross Lafferty Final Score   Saints  1     Ayr Utd 2 As I write this report I’m suffering from a terrible bout of depression brought on by not one jammy B*****d, not even eleven jammy B*****d’s but twenty-two jammy B*****d’s, namely the players of both Ayr United and D*nf*rml*ne. From maintaining our (Bias is back in, it’s strictly “us” and “them” for this reporter today) six point lead at the top of the table it all went wrong in the last couple of minutes in both our clash with Ayr and the Fifers game against Inverness. There we were piling the pressure on the Ayr goal, with them down to ten men and seemingly happy with a point when out of nowhere Barry McLaughlin misjudged a simple enough ball and Neil Tarrant ran on to slot home the winning goal. That was bad enough in itself, but when leaving the ground an announcement was made that D*nf*rml*ne had only drawn with Caley. Everyone gasped out loud, the lead was still a healthy five points. So imagine the scene when I got home, switched on Teletext and seen “Tod 90” below the result from East End Park. I suppose it had to happen sooner or later, with the fifers enjoying a recent run of wins it was always going to be hard to maintain that eight point lead as somewhere along the line points would have to be dropped. There isn’t a team in the land that can win every week and we’re no different. It wasn’t a game that Saints should have lost though. After Ayr took the lead in the 4th minute, when Roddy Grant tucked home Tarrant’s low cross from close range, they...sorry, we always looked to be on top with only the odd surging run from Gary Teale on the right wing causing Tom Hendrie’s men any problems. Both Steven McGarry and Scott Walker had great chances to equalise with McGarry hitting his close range effort off the body of Craig Nelson and Walker, when put through by Tommy Turner, tamely putting the ball straight into the arms of the ‘keeper. The officials were doing their best to help the Ayr cause, with referee Toner waving away Barry Lavety’s appeals for a penalty when as he was setting up to shoot he was tugged from behind allowing Nelson a critical extra second to charge down the Striker’s delayed shot. Next, it was linesman’s .......turn to blink when despite standing only 10 yards away from the action he missed a clear handball from an Ayr defender which was to deny Lavety a clear run at goal. Justice was eventually done(almost) though when only a minute into the second half Andy McMillan was given his marching orders for a second bookable offence after a late challenge on Turner. Only a minute later Saints found themselves level when Iain Nicolson’s corner was flicked on by Mark Yardley to the back post where Lavety was lurking to head home his 13th goal of the season - and all at just a quarter of the price of Alex Bone! For the remainder of the half Saints were practically camped on the edge of the visitors box but as much as they tried they lacked that critical final touch in front of goal which has been their trademark all season. Ayr had removed Grant from the game only seconds after that equaliser and with only Tarrant as a lone striker there seemed to be little chance of them stealing a winner. Then with just two minutes remaining McLaughlin let a long ball out of defence bounce over his head to Tarrant who raced clear to clinch a vital win for Gordon Dalziel’s side. St.Mirren: Scrimgour, Nicolson, Bowman, Turner, McLaughlin, Walker, Murray, Baltacha (Brown 70), Lavety, McGarry (Mendes 62), Yardley  Sub not used: Rudden Ayr United: Nelson, McMillan, Robertson, Shepherd, Craig, Duffy, Teale, Wilson, Grant (Lyons 49), Tarrant (Bone 90), Hansen (Reynolds 62) Sizzling Saint: Although the overall performance was relatively good there were very few individuals who stood out above the rest. One though was captain, Tommy Turner, who put in a great performance to just pip the returning Hugh Murray for the award and also the lead in this season’s overall Sizzling Saint leaderboard.