WITH a budget slimmer than the average super model, and his team adrift at the bottom of the pile, Stirling coach Allan Moore knew that a win against the league's second-worst team was vital if they were to have much chance of evading the drop.
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irling duly clawed back ground on Clyde courtesy of three second-half goals that gave them their first away win of the season, albeit in front of a paltry attendance of 961 punters.
Clyde fielded three debutants, but there wasn't much to enthral home fans in a pretty tame opening quarter. Half-hearted claims for a penalty after Gary Arbuckle tumbled in Stirling's penalty area were borne more out of hope than expectation, you felt. The same player thereafter foxed Stirling goalkeeper Myles Hogarth with a clever looping header, but backtracking defender Laurie Ellis nullified the threat.
Coach John Brown would have been much more encouraged by his team's performance as the first half wore on, although goodness knows what he said to them in the dressing room at quarter to five. They dominated the first half but simply fell apart in the second.
Despite some deft wing play from Nathan Taggart, the visitors were devoid of a sustained threat in the first half, a surprising state of affairs given the importance of the match to Stirling's First Division survival. Chris Aitken's 20-yarder midway through the first half missed the target by a foot, and this was about as close as Albion came to a breakthrough until ten minutes after the restart when Taggart struck from an angle.
It was an impressive display of individual skill, the little fella coursing past a couple of defenders and finding the net via a post.
Stirling extended their lead when Aitken slammed home a penalty after David McKenna's jersey had been tugged by Craig McKeown, and a spectacular 25-yard free kick from Aitken put them out of sight with just over ten minutes remaining.
Clyde substitute Shaun Fagan thumped home a consolation penalty in the latter stages to give the scoreline a bit more respectability, but there was no doubt who was the happier manager at the end of it all.
The First Division relegation scrap just got a lot more interesting.
The full article contains 400 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
