Clydebank 1
Pollok 4
League (West Region Premiership)

Match Report

Clydebank can have no complaints as they were well beaten at home to Pollok by four goals to one. The Bankies were never at the races as Pollok outclassed the Bankies in every department on the field. They closed down the Clydebank players quicker, moved the ball faster and just all round looked a much better side.

The first half was actually fairly tight with very little goal incidents. Pollok were the busier of the two sides constantly forcing the Bankies into losing possession or aimlessly punting the ball up the field. However, for all that it took 21 minutes before a shot was registered on goal when Forde cut in from the left wing leaving two men in his wake before hitting a low effort that was saved by Waters.

The Bankies were fairly inept in their attacking moves and it took until the half hour before they earned a corner kick which was, of course, squandered. Pollok took the lead after 37 minutes after Holmes was careless with a cross field pass that was intercepted. The ball was immediately pushed out to the right wing, crossed into the box for McCann to head home. Too easy.

The Bankies were spurred into some action, and fed up of the lack of inventiveness Kyle Munro tried to take matters into his own hands with a series of individual dribbles one of which led to a wicked shot that was pushed away by Lumsden.

Clydebank got on the scoresheet after 41 minutes and it was a blunder from Lumsden that gifted the equaliser. Craig Holmes hit a well placed diagonal shot from just outside the box, and Lumsden dived to his right and managed to get both hands on the ball but only succeeded in palming it into the net.

Parity only lasted a minute as the Bankies committed the cardinal sin of conceding immediately after scoring when McCann grabbed his second. The fans hopes of going in at the break on level terms had been dashed and Pollok never looked back.

Just four minutes after the restart McCann could have claimed his hat trick when he received a fine sideways pass inside the box, but he directed his shot straight at Waters. Clydebank responded for a short period and Craig Holmes had two long range efforts that both suffered the same fate by squirting wide of the post.

In reality, that was the last time the Bankies were seen as any kind of threat as the match was largely played in Clydebank’s half of the park. Waters produced a couple of good saves to keep the game in the balance particularly tipping a Forde near post volley over the bar.

However, the inevitable third goal arrived in the 76th minute. A quick move and cross down the left wing was headed home by substitute Russell. It was almost a carbon copy of Pollok’s first goal except on the other wing.

The out of sorts Bankies lost another goal just four minutes later. Again, a break down the left wing saw the ball played low across the box for Adam Forde who thrashed a beauty into the net from 15 yards to complete the scoring.

This game will have given manager Gordon Moffat for some food for thought on how to bridge the gap against the better sides we come up against. We are competitive against most teams in the league, and we have seen improved performances of late, however, we have been grinding out results without looking that much better than our opposition. We came up against a much better side tonight who pressed us high up the pitch which our defence and midfield couldn’t cope with. Our forwards were unable to make any inroads into the Pollok defence as we had very few attempts on goal and overall it was a disappointing performance. Auchinleck visit Holm Park next Wednesday and the Bankies will need to up their game significantly in order to avoid a similar fate as tonight.

Match report written by Stuart McBay