Milngavie Wanderers

Archive for June, 2011

William Turner Challenge Cup Final

4^th June 2011

Venue – Wee Hampden

Glasgow University 1 – 2 Milngavie Wanderers Football Club (AET)

Scorers: McKellar Rodgers

MOM: Berto Halliday

Team: Meeky, Berto, O’Hara, Robb, F Maxwell, P Tait, McGonagle, M Maxwell, McKellar, Rodgers, Tum.  Subs: Sweeney, K Tait, McKeevar, Malone,  Simmy

Match Report

The Wanderers lifted their first piece of silver for over 10 years – in what turned out to be a great game of free flowing attacking football from both sides.

For the whole of the first 45 minutes the Wanderers dominated every position on the park, commanding performances from Ross Robb and Francis Maxwell at the heart of the Wanderers defence set the benchmark for the rest of the match.  Early indications suggested the Wanderers were going to over run the uni boys – every first and second ball being convincingly challenged for and won.

Berto Halliday was the outstanding player on the day and his early crazy left wing runs – from left back on a pitch the size of Hampden – left the large crowd of spectators mesmerised at his efforts.  Needless to say it was on one of these forages in up the left in the 10^th minute that seen the ball crossed into the box to be met by that boy with the fancy hair cut Gary McKellar.  His shot rebounded off the helpless Glasgow University keeper and into the open net to give the Wanderers a well deserved lead.

The Wanderers piled on the pressure with McGongle and Maxwell in total control of the centre of the park allowing the wide players to get forward at every opportunity.  Any time the ball was to break for the Glasgow Uni Boys O’hara playing in his usual right back slot would perform heroics cleaning up any loose ball.  The Uni best chance of the first half was from a corner that seen a excellent header hit the top of the bar as it sailed over and out for a Milngavie goal kick.  With the first half coming to an end the Wanderers had a few more chances to get a second goal that would have put the game beyond the Unit boys but it was not to come with Paul Tait, Mickey Rodgers and Tum all having chances that on another day could well have finished up in the back of the net.

With the score 1-0 at the interval the uni made some positional changes and pushing higher up the park to ensure the Wanderers did not have the same time on the ball that they had in the first half.  Although the Uni now had more of the ball they failed to really test Meeky with shots on goals kept to long distance seldom hitting the target.  The uni with a number of their boys well over 6ft resorted to throwing high balls into the box as time was running out.  On the 70^th minute against the run of play the uni got their equalizer.  A free kick wide left was fired into the wanderers box and for the first time in the match the Wanderers failed to clear their lines properly with the ball nicely dropping to the unmarked Uni forward who scored on his second attempt having seen his first shot cleared off the line.

Game on – at this point the uni got a great lift and went all out for the winner.  In the 76^th minute the uni broke from defence quickly and ball ended up in the Milngavie box with the uni forward with only Meeky to beat seen a fantastic save being made to keep the wanderers in it.  In typical never say die fashion the wanderers got a second wind and for the last 10 minutes of the game missed 2 golden opportunities to kill the game off, the first seen Tum uncharacteristically knock the ball a foot too far ahead of him with only the keeper to beat allowing the oncoming keeper to knock the ball to safety.  The second seen an excellent pass by Berto find the back post for McGonagle to rifle a header into the top corner of the net only for the assistant ref to flag for offside.

All square at full time, extra time was pretty much the same as the first 90 minutes with end to end football with Milngavie always looking the likely to edge it.  Simmy a second half substitute missed an excellent opportunity to kill the game off when a great ball by Sweeney went across the penalty box for Simmy to hit first time with only the keeper to beat was put off at the last second by a desperate lunge by the uni defender and the ball skidded away to safety.  Simmy a few moments later did see a spectacular left footed shoot – that was heading for the top right hand corner of the net – put over the bar by a acrobatic save to keep the game level.

With penalities looming the winning goal came with 3 minutes left on the clock.  The Wanderers won a free kick just inside the Uni half after excellent work by Sweeney.  A cross into the box saw Rodgers get up first – rising above the Uni defence – to flick the ball into the bottom corner of the net to seal the victory send the large Milngavie following home happy.   With no time left for the uni to respond the full time whistle went a few mintues later to see the Wanderers crowned champions.