Peterhead v Stenhousemuir FC

 

Stenhousemuir made the long trip up to Peterhead for the last game of the regular season knowing that to secure Second Division status for another season they had to get a point more than Alloa Athletic who were hosts to Livingston.

 

Nevertheless the onus was on the Warriors to get a positive result and hope that the pressure on Alloa would mean that they would fail to get that all important victory. Stenhousemuir made several changes for this match with Ally Brown coming in for the suspended Chris McCluskey, Iain Thomson returned after illness for Brian Gilmour and Paul Quinn stepped in for Simon Lynch.

 

The game was slow to get going with little in the way of goalmouth action until midway through the first half when an Eric Paton was headed over the bar by a defender and from the resultant Stevie Murray corner Michael Devlin just failed to get the vital touch. Peterhead although having plenty of the ball were rarely a threat that is until the 24^th minute when they should have done better when Dennis Wyness headed a Barrie Stephen cross over the bar when he had time to pick his spot after eluding his marker.

 

In the 27^th minute Stevie Murray almost broke the deadlock when a curling free kick struck the post with Peterhead keeper stranded. It was though a fairly forgettable first half though until the 42^nd minute when a Murray pass was picked up by Grant Anderson who showed skill and acceleration in getting into the danger area before firing past Bateman to put Stenhousemuir one up. Seconds later the news came though that Livingston had also taken the lead in the same minute so it was a buoyant Stenhousemuir team that trooped into the dressing room at half time, though they knew that they would have to be fully focused for the second half.

 

The Warriors started brightly after the resumption when Bateman had to be alert to deny Anderson getting his second goal with a brave interception following a quick break by Murray and Iain Thomson. Once the game had settled down Stenhousemuir were on top but Peterhead were not out of it by any means and with Alloa equalising in their game it was a case that the Warriors could not afford to concede anything at the back.

 

Referee Brian Colvin managed to displease both sides when he awarded Stenhousemuir a foul in the 68^th minute, Peterhead felt that no foul had been given whilst Stenhousemuir were angered by the fact that if an infringement had taken place when Scott Dalziel looked to have been fouled it was clearly inside the box and not outside. The Warriors mood however brightened considerably when Eric Paton hit a stunning effort from 20 yards past the keeper to put Stenhousemuir two up.

 

Stenhousemuir now had a bit of freedom to play as the nervous tension lifted and Anderson made a powerful run into the box but although he went down in a challenge as the defence tried to intercept it was clearly a clean tackle and it was just the momentum of both himself and the defender that made it look worse than it was.

 

In the 75^th minute the Warriors extended the lead to three goals after Paul Quinn took advantage of an error by Stuart Smith on the touchline and picked out Scott Dalziel in the middle and he was able to steer a header into the net.

 

This was a decent performance by Stenhousemuir under pressure and they knew that they had done their part of the game to keep them up and in the latter stages Livingston struck twice at Alloa which meant that it was the Wasps who fell into the play off zone for the first time all season with their manager Ally Maitland suffering the consequences as he was dismissed after the game.

When the final whistle blew there was jubilant scenes amongst the Stenhousemuir players, officials and supporters that they had secured their future in the Second Division for another year and although as manager David Irons stated that it seems strange to celebrate 8^th in the league they did well to get there having 9^th or below for all of the second half of the season until Saturday