The Slow Match Report: Airdrie 1 Raith Rovers 0

Welcome to the new season. Hope in North Lanarkshire. A shock sacking. And through it all, The Black Eyed Peas.

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Today, we start with the first in another new series: The Slow Match Report. We hope you enjoy it. There’s much, much more to come.

Airdrieonians 1 Raith Rovers 0
August 3, 2024

Seldom do supporters feel more optimistic than in the minutes prior to kick-off on a season’s opening day. For a short while, no matter how bad last year was we indulge in gleeful and frequently misplaced hope. We are once again children clinging to a Christmas list filled with outrageous demands. The fixture list is a scroll of unanswered questions, the league table with its multiple zeros and alphabetical order a boxed jigsaw. Or, as one man queuing by the clacking turnstiles on Saturday said to no-one in particular, “A new season, eh? Ye’ cannae fuckin’ beat it.”

In broad, eager strides, locals and Fife day trippers cantered towards the Albert Bartlett Stadium, newly christened and rebranded following a sponsorship deal with the local potato company. Such changes are integral to a fresh season’s appeal – glancing at new shirts in the club shop, or observing recent signings during the warm-up, or inspecting whether last term’s faulty catering hatch condiments dispenser has been replaced.

Deep inside the main stand, concourse rituals were being reignited. An old lady wearing a red-and-white scarf which may well have served in the war queued for her 50/50 lotto ticket. Those who only knew each other from being here nodded and exchanged hellos (“Good summer?” “Yeah. You?”). Once more supporters filed along to their seats, and once more Black Eyed Peas’ I Gotta Feeling blared from the PA system at an ear-slicing volume which threatened to set off car alarms in Motherwell. Football was back.

Bloated clouds at last parted and the teams strolled on. They were welcomed like long lost friends both by home supporters and those who had travelled to fill most of the away stand. For Airdrieonians and Raith Rovers, standard August optimism was swelled by the feats of last season – the Diamonds with their inventive, scurrying football under player-manager Rhys McCabe, not far into his thirties; and bookies’ title favourite Rovers, reinvented following doldrum times and boardroom idiocy. In Ian Murray, they possessed an impressive manager who almost certainly would not be removed from the post any time soon.

Both teams were bathed in the mantras of models and overloads, of ‘trusting the process’ and systemic, controlled football. After just a couple of minutes, they broke free of their ideological shackles and indulged in a mass scuffle close to the dug-outs, two stag dos scrapping in the rickshaw queue.

Then, Raith centre-half Callum Fordyce – until May player-assistant manager here – attempted to clear the ball but kneed it instead, Buckaroo defending. Both moments roused the crowd every bit as much as a passage of one-touch play. Everything changes and nothing does.

Following those old-world charms came some from the new, all engineered by the home side. Their glossy football flummoxed Rovers and had their midfielders darting around manically, like woodlice trapped beneath a pint glass. Midfielder Rhys Armstrong teased and probed. When without the ball he was desperate to possess it again, an eager kid during pass the parcel. The brisk left wing-back Mason Hancock combined with winger Terrell Agyemang – borrowed for the season from Middlesbrough – to confuse them further.

Hancock was another man impressively keen to have custody of the ball. Often he stood by the touchline calling for it. At one point, to gain attention he issued the self-conscious wave of a lone train passenger reacting to a child in a passing field.

“Oh Air-der-ie!” sang the home fans, skilfully wringing three syllables from their town’s name, “is wonderful…” They were encouraged by two Airdrie corners in a row. For the first, nine players stood on the edge of the penalty area and then sprinted towards the goal as the taker ran up. Next, five of them crowded the goal area while others looked on, motionless. It brought to mind the switches between ceilidh dances at a wedding, with Rovers defenders being the clueless and reluctant guests sat around at the side or insisting on going to the bar.

For all the Diamonds dominated the first half their chances were few and fruitless. Raith played limply and seemed physically scared of their opponents’ half, as if might contain quicksand and booby traps. Early season games are so often this way. Teams seem to return from the break having forgotten how to score goals, just as we as schoolchildren would return from six weeks’ holiday having forgotten how to write.

In the minutes before the interval, the game dwindled and supporters chatted or skipped out for pies. A seagull landed by the touchline and began to peck unprofitably at the 3G pitch. Fordyce hit a clearance that landed among the Raith fans and then lowered his head in the manner of a man who had run for a bus and then missed it. We all enjoyed the referee’s half-time whistle as if it were a delightful symphony. Behind me, a man unfurled a large Toblerone and said, “Might as well.”

The second half traced over the silhouette lines of the first. Airdrie shunted the ball around enjoyably and occasionally sculpted chances, such as when a Ben Wilson shot pecked the bar. Rovers were clunky, laborious. If their play had made a sound it would have been that of a reversing bin lorry. Lewis Vaughan attempted a shot from the centre circle. The ball darted off with conviction and then plummeted like an expiring balloon. In the pebbledash housing estate that overlooks one corner of the ground, someone shut their curtains.

They, though, missed justice being served: a goal for Airdrie. The right-back Dylan MacDonald – marauding all second-half – dashed for the box and nicked a header home. The cheer was boisterous, brilliant. “Raith,” they sang, “Raith are falling apart again.” It seemed an early declaration but someone in the Rovers boardroom was listening: within 24 hours, Ian Murray had been sacked.

The wind changed and carried across the pitch a simple sentence from the away end: “Shite, Raith.” With hands in pockets, Fifers scuttled down gangways and out of the Potato Palace. If you were dressed in blue, first day optimism was now in a crumpled heap. In red, though, everything glowed.