KAISAYR I.F.C.

Parscelona (Dunfermline) 1-1 KaisAYR (Ayr United)

Friday, 8th October, 1999

ERIN Cup

All the boys who were going to the tourney met in the car park at Ayr Station, for what was an extremely early start. We set off with a depleted squad in search of glory in Edinburgh.

On arrival at the Jack Kane Centre only two of the three cars that had left Ayr had made it. Peil was starting to lose it, even leaving his tactics on the roof his car...

...they showed up with 5 minutes to spare and had picked up our new player (Hawksey) on the way!!

The first game was against Parscelona. After Grammy had been warmly welcomed by the Parsca manager, the match got under way. Both teams started well with both looking like they could take something from the game. Just before Half-time KaisAyr's stand in 'keeper Roy Donnachie was called in to the action and pulled off a brilliant save when he tipped the ball over from a long range effort.

The first half finished goal-less. The second half got under way and Parsca took the lead when a back post header squirmed between Roy's legs. KaisAyr weren't out of it yet though, we were the better footballing team and deserved the equaliser when it came.

Midway through the second half, Paul Roseblade threw the ball in from the left and Grammy connected with a header. The keeper got a hand to the effort, but the ball fell fortunately to his feet for him to tuck it away.

The match finished level but we felt we deserved the win...

The next match was against the hosts, Erin Hibs, only 10 minutes later. This was a bad tempered match when Hibs decided it would be better to try some uncalled for dirty tactics. The referee decided to take no notice to Hibs actions and instead acted against us after a few soft challenges - even awarding a free kick against AJ for standing next to someone?!?

Shortly after this the usually calm Dave Neil lost the rag with the ref and a few heated words were exchanged. But after being threatend with an early shower Peil calmed it a bit (Although he was quite right in the first place).

This match finished 3-1 to Hibs, with Hawksey lobbing the Hibs keeper for our goal.

It was discovered that we needed to win by two goals and for Parsca to lose to Hibs for us to qualify for the next stage, but it was out of our hands as the Pars and Hibs played first.

Hibs set us up for a nail-biter as they went into the second half one up. Then Parsca were awarded a dodgy looking penalty (Another case of Oscar Nomination, methinks), but the Hibs keeper pulled off a good save and kept us in there. Our hopes were dashed when Parsca got the equaliser. A corner was swung into the box, only for the keeper to flap at it and punch it into his own net.

If we beat the Sluts we would still go out by a point.

We were now playing for pride and the right to say that we came "so close, but yet so far". We made a few changes by pushing Paul Roseblade into midfield and pulling Martin Duggan back into a sweeper position in the defence. The game started well for Ayr and we were in control for the majority of the game. The opening goal came when Grammy struck a low free kick that took a deflection off the wall and went in to the opposite corner of the net. 1-0 at half time and the boys looked comfortable. Callum Yorke gave us a spectacular second when he chipped the keeper from a tight angle at the edge of the area.

We looked to be strolling now and the pursuit of goals now being the aim, they got caught on the counter-attack and we had lost a soft goal, but normal service was resumed when Hawksey made it 3-1 at the second attempt after the keeper had saved his first shot.

The game finished at that score and KaisAyr took their first win.

We did better than we could possibly have hoped for with a depleted squad and it must surely give more hope for the future...

Squad:
Roy Donnachie
Darren Reid
Andy Jackson
Paul Roseblade
Martin Duggan
Graeme Morton
Alan Jess
Callum Yorke
Hawksey
Martin Foote