July 2002
Sunday, July 28
7.30pm
Our impressive pre-season run continued this afternoon with a 1-0 win over Cardiff City at Fir Park. While the game was nothing to write home about in the first place, the ref did his best to spoil it even further by reducing both sides to 10 men and generally being completely incompetent for the entire 90 mins.
The match started off as if it was a cup tie rather than a meaningless friendly, and within the first 10 mins we had two orderings off. A Cardiff player went in late on Shaun Fagan, who in turn reacted aggressively, but bearing in mind this was a friendly the ref could easily have booked both players or even requested that they both be substituted rather than brandishing two red cards. Things could have got out of hand at this point, but calm was restored and shortly later Motherwell took the lead when Cardiff’s no 15 brought down McFadden in the box and Derek Adams sent the ‘keeper the wrong way with the resulting penalty. We had a couple of further chances, with Adams bringing out a great save from the visitor’s keeper after being put through by McFadden, and then Corrigan hitting the side netting following a knock-down by Lehman, but had to settle for a single goal lead at the interval.
The second half was a complete non-event, with a couple of pieces of magic from James McFadden the only real highlights. Still, this was our fifth straight pre-season win and Terry Butcher can take great encouragement once again from the performance of James McFadden, who was a class above anything else on the pitch. I must also make a special mention of "Zinadine" Corrigan, who looks as though he will be a revelation at centre-half!
Oh, and despite what appeared in yesterday’s Sun, there was never any hint of crowd trouble at the match, although the club were clearly taking no chances as there was a far larger police presence than normal.
Team (4-4-2): Woods, Ramsay, Corrigan, Partridge, Hammell, Lasley, Adams (Kinniburgh 85), Leitch (McDonald 78), Fagan, McFadden, Lehman.
Subs not used: DuBordeau, Clarke, Dempsie.
Crowd: 2,450
One of this morning’s tabloids reported that Cardiff are about to make a bid for Stephen Pearson, and had planned to watch him closely during this afternoon’s match. As it turned out, Pearo missed the game due to an ankle knock he picked up on Wednesday night.
Today’s Scotland on Sunday contains a interested article on Daniel Sengewald, our new signing from Germany. Meanwhile, Ricky has unearthed the following photos of him! (MS Word format)
Don’t forget to check out our Rumours page, which has just been updated with the latest juicy gossip from the club…
Time for TWO new Opinion Polls…
What do you think of the new Home and Away Strips?
and
Who is your Player of the Year?
Enter our new Prediction League – cash prizes to be won!