Dundee West Anniversary Cup Final
(Sunday 22nd May)
Squad: Barclay, Sherry, Dickson, Fraser, Brennan, Findlater, Kerrigan, Prain, Barber, Todd, Penman, Cheyne, Reid, McKenna, Pogson, Ray, Hamilton.
Cup final day arrives at North End park and with two previous victories over the Saints this season hopes were high of lifting the cup. However Saints are a well drilled outfit and from the first whistle they showed grit and determination and with a strong wind helping them Kirrie found themselves in a real battle in the opening exchanges and Barclay produced a great early save to keep the score deadlocked.
Strangely Kirries defence which normally does the right thing at the right time did the opposite and after a number of defensive blunders Saints somehow failed to capitalise. But with the strong wind Saints had the majority of play and when another missed clearance fell to the striker’s feet he cooly lobbed the ball over the keeper who was caught of his line for 1-0. Finally this woke up the Kirrie players who were all playing below their best and slowly but surely after a poor half hour they began to move the ball and the pendulum slowly started to swing back to Kirrie.
Penman launched a high pass over the Saints back four and Kerrigan’s pace saw him first to the ball but he shot over, then Dickson fired in a long range effort and with several good corners Kirrie finally started to play as we know they can and with seconds to half time an identical Penman pass saw Kerrigan race to goal and a classy finish into the net saw the score level 1-1 at the interval. With the wind now behind them it was Kirries half to dominate and that they did with wave after wave of attacking possession.
Kirrie were awarded a free kick just outside the corner of the Saints box and with the strong wind Penman’s shot hit the back of the net 1-2. Kirrie were now dominant and Saints barely crossed the half way line, but with the score still 1-2, you never know.
However when a fierce Dickson shot rebounded of the post Sherry raced in for number 3 and a huge sigh of relief was felt by all. Full time blew for a 1-3 win. With very difficult wind conditions this was never a pretty game of football but with dominating possession in the second half, Barclay in goal never got a touch, such was the control Kirrie had. A win is a win no matter what kind of football is played and in a final it’s even better.
