Clydebank 1
East Fife 4
League (Division 2)

Match Report

Never before have I seen such an extraordinary display of refereeing at Kilbowie as we had against East Fife. On at least two occasions the referee did not take action which seemed appropriate when things went wrong. One of his decisions may have cost Clydebank a goal.

That was when, in the 57th minute, centre half Fallon passed back to Dick Madden in goal. Unfortunately the ball failed to reach Madden and Bobby Waddell came in for a shot.

The goal was lying wide open and keeper Madden had to take drastic measures to prevent a goal; he caught Waddell’s ankle as he ran past.

Of course, ref WJ Mullan awarded a penalty. Before the kick was taken keeper Madden pointed out to the referee that his right arm had been injured during the foul.

Despite this the referee ordered the penalty to be taken. Centre half Guild took the kick, and needless to say put it into the net past Dick Madden’s bad side.

Only after all this did the referee call on trainer Maurice Friel of Clydebank to attend to Madden’s injured arm.

The other incident happened near the end of the game. Hay of Clydebank, and Rae of the visitors had been niggling one another for some time and at one point came very near to blows, following a short argument. The referee failed to take action or even to speak to the players.

True to form over the past few months, Bankies played a marvellous first half in this match then dropped away to nothing in the second half.

Clydebank opened the scoring only six minutes from the start. The goal came from inside-right Love who collected a brilliant cross from the right wing , ten yards out, and sent the ball high into the East Fife net.

Both teams were finding it difficult down the north side of the pitch where heavy rain had caused an ankle deep puddle.

The Steedman’s may have been wiser to equip their outside men with aqualungs instead of football boots.

This part of the pitch was avoided like the plague and when the ball did land there, it gave a satisfying “thunk” and stopped dead, as did the players.

Clydebank held on to their lead throughout the first half and were actually walloping the East Fife team. Shots from Caskie, Mitchell, Hawkshaw and Hay might easily have increased the home lead, had it not been for East Fife’s keeper, Gorman.

As far as the Clydebank team is concerned, the second half is hardly worth mentioning. They were not a patch on the way they came out for the first half.

East Fife’s equaliser came in the 54th minute when right half Borthwick passed in to Bobby Waddell, at centre, who sent the ball under Dick Madden.

Three minutes later East Fife went into the lead with controversial penalty previously mentioned.

After this it was all East Fife. The Clydebank players seemed to have lost all inclination to play for a win as a result the visitors ran rings round them.

Goal no. 3 was also Bobby Waddell’s hat-trick. Again this was a somewhat controversial goal. Inside-right Burke of East Fife took the ball through the Clydebank defence and looked offside just as Bobby Waddell ran onto the ball.

Waddell then ran past keeper Madden to score. If he was not offside he must have been very near it.

Bankies had no fight let in them and when East Fife scored yet again in the closing minute of the match, it came as no surprise. Again Bobby Waddell was the man behind the goal when he hammered home a Miller, right wing pass, from close in.