Match Report - By John Hoey

City and Stenhousemuir shared the spoils in a game of two halves at Glebe Park.

Rory McAllister with his twelfth league goal of the season and Mark Docherty, scoring his second goal in successive games were on the mark for the hosts while Pat Scullion and Scott Dalziel scored the goals that won the Warriers a point.

All of the goals came in an exciting second-half after a drab and lack-lustre opening forty five minutes had ended goalless.

The game got the go-ahead after a 10.00am pitch inspection and the club would like to thank the fifteen or so volunteers who turned up at 7.00am on a bitterly cold morning and helped to remove the covers which had been protecting the pitch thereby ensuring that the game took place.

Manager Jim Duffy kept faith with the side that won the previous week against Clyde so convincingly, and that meant that Barry Smith who has been such an important player for City this season had to be content with a place on the bench.

The first-half was only noteworthy for the lack of goal-scoring opportunities which fell to each team.

Passing football was at a premium as both sides tried to cope with the bitterly cold temperature and bumpy pitch.

Charlie King had the best chance for City in the opening half when he collected the ball at the left-side edge of the penalty-box, beat his man and fired in a shot but his effort flew across the face of the goal.

City were more assertive after the break and pushed forward whenever they could and they got their reward in the 59th minute when McAllister blasted the ball home from just inside the box after a King shot had hit a defender after a period of sustained pressure on the Warriers goal, with former City keeper Chris McCluskey performing heroics.

City tried hard to add to the opener but they were shocked in the 67th minute when Stenny drew level.

A dangerous in-swinging corner from the right wasn’t cleared by the City defence and when the ball broke to Scullion just within the box, the midfielder wasted no time in dispatching a low right-foot drive into the bottom corner of the net.

City though didn’t let this get them down and they regained the initiative just two minutes later with an opportunist goal from Docherty.

McAllister created the opportunity when he moved away from his marker and collected a good Neil Janczyk cross within the box before drilling a fierce left-foot drive which came back off the post straight to Docherty who hammered the ball into the net from around two yards out.

City again tried to press home the advantage but they were shocked eight minutes later when the Warriers equalised for the second time.

Another corner from the right was met by Dalziel who had room and space to head the ball into the top corner of the net.

In an effort to win the three points, City sent on Ian Harty and Mark Cowan for King and Byers but they just couldn’t find a way through a resolute visitor’s rearguard.

Speaking after the game, manager Jim Duffy was clearly disappointed
with the outcome.

“ I was very frustrated with our performance today,” he said.

“ We got ourselves in the lead twice and were pulled back on each occasion which is extremely disappointing.”

“ Chris McCluskey seems to save his best performances for every time he comes back to Glebe Park.”

“ I don’t think that Craig Nelson had really any significant save to make while at the other end McCluskey had three good saves and a couple of decent saves while we also missed a couple of opportunities.”

“ Losing the two goals from set-pieces was also highly disappointing and the players are going to have to learn to defend them an awful lot better than they did today.”

“ We knew that Stenny would battle hard but we tried to press the game whenever we could and it was a game we deserved to and should have won.”

Stenhousemuir boss John Coughlin said,

“ I am delighted with the draw because City haven’t been beaten at home this year and this is a really tough place to come to.”

“ I felt that we would be a bit flat after our exertions against Dunfermline on Tuesday night and I wanted to ensure that the players were really up for the game so I was doing a lot of shouting from the touchline.”

“ We had a number of lads missing today and we didn’t create much in terms of scoring opportunities but we showed great character to come back twice and get a result.”

“ We got a lot of plaudits for our performance on Tuesday night when we came away with nothing to show for our efforts but today, we’ve managed to take a point away from home from a very good side and all credit to the boys for finding the energy to take something from the game.”

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