Clydebank 6
St Johnstone 1
League (Division 1)

Match Report

It was five o'clock and Alex Rennie was well and truly under the moon. As he sat, silent, in Sam Henderson's office downstairs his bedraggled, bewildered players shuffled sheepishly to the team bus. The man did not look pleased – and little wonder.

His table-topping side had just been hammered – or is that a little weak? – by a Clydebank team which at last showed its full potential. And what a game to do it in.

Bankies had to win to retain any chance of promotion to the Premier League and they did so with such style and power that it was hard to take it all in.

It was memorable, marvellous stuff in a game which I will never forget.

Poor St Johnstone. They never played badly, but they never got the breaks and were just unfortunate that Clydebank ran into the kind of form late on that would have floored most of the First Division put together.

Yet there were a couple of spells during 90 minutes of pure entertainment when the Perth side could have laid the foundations for a very important result indeed.

The first came in the ten minutes immediately after Jim Morton had equalised from the spot when referee Brian Robertson adjudged Mark Treanor's challenge on John Brogan to be illegal.

The signs were there that Clydebank were tottering after a whirlwind start, and had Saints grabbed a second then they might have taken advantage of the fragile Kilbowie temperament.

They didn't, but were given a second chance after Bankies recovered themselves to go 3-1 in front. This time they did everything right, but found that to get past the Clydebank defence in the kind of mood they were in they would have needed a couple of Sherman tanks, never mind a first-class forward line.

For even when Brogan and new man Ray Blair got past Jim Gallacher up popped Jim Fallon – twice – and Tony Gervaise to keep them out.

Their forces were spent and Clydebank sent in the big guns to finish them off.

Within minutes of being under severe pressure, Bankies had hit Saints with a killer one-two and completed a fabulous rout with a sixth goal 10 minutes from time.

The joy of the Bankies fans in the pitifully small crowd of 837 was understandable. Their favourites had turned in a superb show not on a day when the team at the top of the league played exceptionally badly, but when they contributed greatly to a great game.

The fans watched as Clydebank did everything right – scoring, stopping the opposition, passing, entertaining - in a show that had everything which is good about the game.

I found it hard to equate that performance to the previous week's at Somerset Park. They were as night and day.

From the off, it was obvious that the re-introduction of Gerry Ronald was going to be an important factor in Clydebank 's display, and within five minutes he had proved his worth to the side.

The ball he hit to Tommy Coyne's feet from Bobby Williamson's headed lay off may or may not have been a shot, but whatever happened it split the defence and Coyne had plenty of time to steady himself and shoot past Mike McDonald.

The early Clydebank charge was halted by Morton's well-struck penalty, but only temporarily. After 28 minutes Coyne was challenged clumsily by Alex Caldwell and Jimmy Given did his usual confident job from the spot.

Near the break, we saw the games only unsavoury incidents, with Don MacVicar booked for a bad foul on Ronald and Gerry McCabe and Stuart Beedie joining him for tackling each other without the ball.

But come the second-half and it was back to real football, with Bankies launching a ferocious assault which was eventually to lead to Budgie McGhie heading home go number three.

Bobby Williamson and Tommy Coyne that the softening up work, getting the defence in a tangle before McGhie bundled the ball over the line.

But how important were Jim Fallon and Tony Gervaise's goal-line heroics within the next few minutes. St Johnstone could just not believe it as the two used heads, feet and other parts of the anatomy to keep Ray Blair, John Brogan and Andy Brannigan from scoring.

Unfortunately for them, they had no-one as well positioned when Clydebank moved up a gear to score three times in eight minutes to send Kilbowie Park into ecstasy.

In the 72nd minute, Bobby Williamson cut the ball back for Gerry McCabe to supply the final touch which beat McDonald, then Coyne chipped across goal for Williamson to score at the back post and finally it was Williamson again who set up Coyne for his second.

The last 10 minutes were played out in a breathless hush, as if the exertions has left fans and players unable to put any more into the game.

Not that anymore was really necessary. It had been splendid stuff from the word go, far better than any other game I've watched this season and the kind of match I would gladly travel to see any day of the week.