Scottish League Division 3
	East Stirling	2
	Stewart, Canning (og)
	Queen's Park	1
	Ronald
Saturday, September 30, 2006

THIS fixture wasn't so much a banana skin that could trip us up, it was a bleedin great minefield that could blow our newfound confidence to yon place.

If Gulliver had been asked to pick one team to avoid after the Spiders got their league season back on track by beating the league leaders, the Shire would have been fairly close to the top of the list. In fact, only winless Elgin would have been ahead of them in the ones to be avoided category, as we all know how much Queen's love helping teams secure their first win of the season.

Bitter experience has told the Hoops faithful to be wary of teams below us in the league, but Gulliver has begun to sense a subtle wind of change in the dressing room.

It seems our first team coach is simply not prepared to accept the shrug of the shoulders followed by the "we always struggle against teams we are expected to beat" excuse.

Cast your mind back to the Montrose game if evidence of the boss's determination is needed. In all the time he has been here, he's seldom let rip at the players. He did that day. Gulliver is told the immediate post-match analysis went something along the lines of: "Garbage, not good enough. Get changed and get out of here."

The reason for his displeasure is simple. He knows we have made progress; he is ambitious for this team - and he won't accept players not sharing that ambition. He was bitterly disappointed, not at any lack of effort, but at a lack of willingness from the players to take the game by the scruff of the neck, and have the confidence to make sure we earned three points.

There's no doubt we have the players to be involved in the promotion shake-up come April. Equally, there is no argument that we'll miss out if we beat all the teams at the top of the league, and fritter away points against those we should be looking to beat.

That was the backdrop to today's encounter. Could we take the game to our opposition from the start and play our way? Or would we be dragged into a dour struggle, as happened against the men from Links Park?

The first shock of the afternoon was the sight of the Firs Park pitch, where the grass was higher than most of the Queen's Park players. That ruled out hopes of a smooth, passing game, but would Queen's be able to adapt?
The second surprise was that the boss was able to keep exactly the same starting XI, would they be able to follow up last week's good work?
The answer to both questions was, sadly, No.
Before the game we had watched tv pictures of Bolton beating Liverpool 2-0 despite having only two attempts on goal in the entire game.
The fear was Queen's might suffer a similar fate, and in the end that's exactly what happened.
We had the bulk of the play, the bulk of the chances, and our players scored two of the three goals.
So how did we lose - simple, if you don't take your chances, you don't win games.
Quinn was the first to go close, heading over after just four minutes Ten minutes later it was Robert Dunn's turn, completely missing his kick from Weatherston's cutback.
Canning then had a free kick saved before Ronald headed over the top. Less than 30 minutes on the clock, and we could have been out of sight. Instead we were waiting for the sucker punch, which duly arrived 60 seconds later.
Referee Charleston had won few friends in the ranks of the away supporters with some of his decisions, and his award of a free kick to the home side on the edge of the box did little to change the growing sense of injustice. To rub salt in the wound, Shire's Stewart smacked the ball low, it took two deflections and ended up in the net.
Shire shots one, Shire goals one... you couldn't make it up.
Queen's continued to boss the game without looking like they were convinced they could score.
They almost did right on the break when Dunlop had a clear header from Paton's corner. Sadly, his effort flew narrowly wide.
The visitors stepped up the pace considerably after the interval and the chances kept mounting.
Ferry had a good first time effort saved; Kettlewell's ambitious volley dipped just a bit late and then Dunn had a difficult bouncing shot well saved.
Right on the hour, the man in the middle (who I would never criticise) managed to upset more of the visiting fans. Weatherston burst into the box and let fly. His effort certainly struck the arm of a Shire defender, but the referee decided it wasn't worth a penalty. Few people agreed with him.
Moments later, we finally got the break. Ronald's low shot was on target and low. Homer described it as a daisy cutter, but the Firs Park grass was far too long for daisies to grow, never mind be cut.
Anyway, it somehow skimmed along the surface and squirmed under the keeper.
1-1. Surely we would now kick on and win?
Not only did we not manage to score in the right end, we had the gut-wrenching disappointment of scoring the winner for the home side.
Canning was under all sorts of pressure from a high ball, and the thing skewed off his head and floated past a helpless Cairns.
All that remained was for the referee to further infuriate the Hoops fans, particularly when Shire's Dymock grabbed the ball in both hands as he fell ... and was somehow awarded as free kick.
This correspondent would never criticise any official, but it has to be said that Mr Charlesrton didn't do us any favours today. Neither did the pitch, but we weren't beaten by either of those things.
We were beaten because we couldn't take chances, we didn't pass the ball well enough, and we didn't perform as we can.
Quite what the boss will have made of it is anybody's guess. Again, there was no lack of effort, but that wee bit of composure just wasn't there when we needed it most.
We've a couple of weeks to get over this, before we have to travel to Gayfield to face Arbroath.
That will be no picnic, but already we are getting too far behind too many teams for comfort.

Time to get going, Queen's.