11/9/99 Parscelona 4 St Mirren 3

September 11th, 1999

Parscelona 4 St Mirren 3
St Leonards Park, Dunfermline

PARSCELONA SQUAD : A. Mooney, F. Clark, J. MacDougall, C. Ozog, A. Maxwell, C. Wilson, G. Cotter, K. Mackie, A. McLeod, N. Holland, Alex Mercer, Alasdair Mercer, D. Galloway, R. Arnott, C. McKean, M. Povey, Ronz, K. Rapley (ended up as referee), H. Nicholson, and Chris somebody.
Buggered if I'm going to try and remember what the starting 11 was.

Scorers for Parscelona:
G. Cotter
A. McLeod
C. McKean
A. Mooney

Parscelona opened the scoring in 18 minutes when a Grant Cotter shot beat St Mirren's keeper. The score only remained at one-nil for six minutes.

A Saints attacker tried to find his way into the box, and was fouled just outside it by Johnnie MacDougall. Having retained the ball, referee Keith Rapley allowed the advantage but when the same attacker was obstructed by Ally Mooney the ref had no choice but to award a penalty. The Saints penalty-taker put the ball just out of reach of Ronz in the Pars goal and one-one it stayed until half time.

Saints started the second half as the stronger team, and put the Pars defence under intense pressure. Claims for a second St Mirren penalty were rightly waved away by the ref after a St Mirren attacker went down in the box following a diving tackle from Ronz. However, the goal came soon enough.

With 62 minutes on the clock (halves were 40 minutes each way), the Pars defence were split wide open by a through ball. Claiming offside against a St Mirren attacker who was running back, they were caught out by the other St Mirren attacker who, despite protestations to the contrary from a few Pars players, was in his own half when the ball was played. The attacker found himself one-on-one with Ronz and put it away with style to give St Mirren the lead.

Pars tried to get back into it but of the few shots which went on target their closest effort came from a Fraser Clark shot which was brilliantly tipped over the bar by the Saints' keeper.

Two minutes after St Mirren had taken the lead, they strengthened their position courtesy of some more poor defending from Parscelona. An unnamed defender failed to clear a cross, which ended up at the back post. As Pars' Chris Ozog found himself trying to mark two men (a situation which cost Parscelona dearly against Hibs the week before) he could nothing to stop the Saints' attacker slotting away their third from close range.

Parscelona then got lucky when the breeze at their backs turned into a light wind, making it more difficult for Saints to mount an attack, and spurring Parscelona on to an impressive fight-back, starting just two minutes after going two goals down.

In similar circumstances to Saints' second goal, a through ball caused all sorts of difficulty, this time for the Saints' defence. Ali McLeod found himself with all the time in the world to run in at the keeper but at as the ball sat up just right he tried a long range shot instead. The ball swerved and dipped, giving the Saints' keeper no chance, and earning Ali not just his first goal but also possibly the best Parscelona goal to date.

Parscelona continued to fight back and managed to win the ball straight from Saints' kick-off. When Colin McKean finally found enough space to shoot he did so, and it was three-all.

With 8 minutes remaining Saints must have been gutted when they recived one final blow. An Ali McLeod cross from the right made its way through a huddle of players and eventually dropped in front of Pars' Ally Mooney who made little mistake in hammering it home from a few yards out.

Some dodgy defending for the Saints' goals, but other than that it was a good Parscelona performance and a very impressive comeback.