MATCH REPORT

Alloa Athletic vStenhousemuir at the Indodrill Stadium Alloa on 5.11.16

SPFL Ladbrokes League One Att 458

Alloa Athletic 4 [Spence 8, Graham 28, Longworth 35, Cawley 61] Stenhousemuir 1 [Roy 36]

 

Alloa Athletic – Parry, Taggart, Waters, Graham, Marr, Goodwin [b31][Holmes 56][b85], Cawley,  Robertson, Spence [Donnelly 74], Kirkpatrick [Martin 82] and Longworth. Subs not used – Scullion, Hoggan, Wilson and McDowall.

 

Stenhousemuir – Crawford [McCabe 45], Meechan, Summers, Marsh, Kerr, Berry, Gilhaney, Millar [Docherty 69], McMenamin, Roy and Cook [McCormack 21]. Subs not used – Hamilton and McCroary.

 

Referee – Steven Reid Assistants – Willie Conquer and Daniel Graves

 

Remember remember the fifth of November is the well known saying. For Warriors supporters over the years it has been a good saying to take on board as there has been several memorable events that have fallen on that day. 2016 though will not be one of them though as they lost to Alloa by a three goal margin. For much of the game there wasn’t much between the teams but in the end the score line didn’t lie.

 

Stenhousemuir kept the same team that had won at Hampden the previous week but their hopes of building on that were soon extinguished. The home side had threatened with a couple of corner kicks in the early stages through the delivery of Calum Waters but had held on. Alloa though were to take the lead after only 8 minutes when David Crawford’s poor kick out was met by Kevin Cawley and he played in an unmarked Greig Spence to fire home. Two minutes later Stenhousemuir should have had a penalty when Scott Taggart upended Mark Gilhaney in the box but no award was forthcoming.  The ball though broke to Colin McMenamin and his shot was saved by Neil Parry. If that was a piece of misfortune it was nothing to that inflicted several minutes later when Alan Cook having been played through by Vinnie Berry attempted to chip the goalkeeper but the keeper made himself big to save the effort and in the course of play collided with Cook who was injured in the process suffering concussion.

 

Alloa extended their lead in the 28th minute when another Waters corner caused problems and Jim Goodwin crouched low to back head the ball into the path of Andy Graham who eluded the defenders to head home. Alloa grew in confidence after this and they went three up in the 35th minute. Greig Spence rattled a shot off the crossbar and Jamie Longworth headed the rebound into the net for his first goal in Alloa colours. 

 

To their credit the Warriors kept going and actually scored 11 seconds later. From the kick off the ball was played up to Colin McMenamin who headed it on to Ally Roy and he took a couple of touches before tucking the ball into the net.

 

That gave the visitors a good chance to get back into the game but they were to suffer more misfortune before the break when David Crawford was injured whilst kicking the ball. That summed up a first half where Stenhousemuir had actually had more possession but had found themselves in arrears after giving away several cheap goals.

 

Stenhousemuir struggled to get any momentum in the second period though Gilhaney did test Neil Parry early on. The ex-Warrior proved up to the task though and brought off a fine save. 

In the 61st minute Alloa scored their fourth goal of the game through Kevin Crawley with a crossfield shot that Colin McCabe was unable to keep out. That knocked the stuffing out of the Stenhousemuir team who rarely threatened after that. Kieran Millar was the third player to pick up an injury on a day to forget.

 

Despite Alloa now playing the better football and now in control they were unable to add to their tally before the final whistle.