Forfar Athletic v Stenhousemuir FC

Match Report

Forfar Athletic v Stenhousemuir at Station Park, Forfar on 17.1.15

SPFL Division One             Att 515

Forfar Athletic 1 [Denholm 77] Stenhousemuir 0

Forfar Athletic – Douglas, Travis, I.Campbell, Malcolm [b49], Dods, Young, Kader, Malin [b48] [Dale 57] , Fotheringham [Husband 82], Swankie and Hilson [Denholm 8]. Subs not used – Dunlop, James, Smith and Salmon.

Stenhousemuir – Fleming, Meechan, Lithgow, McMillan, Summers, K.Millar [b2], Dickson [McCormack 63], Hodge, McMenamin, Watt [Grehan 87] and Eddington [Faulds 72]. Subs not used – Fotheringham, Gallacher, Smith and Duncan.

Referee – Craig Charleston           Assistants – Ralph Gordon and Kyle Hall.

Both teams went into this game chasing their first points of 2015 but it was Forfar that were successful in this task as they were victorious by a solitary Danny Denholm goal. The Warriors once again changed their starting eleven for this game with Alan Lithgow and Ross Meechan swapping places in the defence. Lee Gallacher and Kris Faulds dropped to the bench being replaced by Josh Watt and Kieran Millar respectively. On the bench was a trialist Jamie McCormack who is a 22 year old who was on the books of Brechin City earlier this season. Manager Scott Booth was sitting in the stand as he was serving a dugout ban after his sending off against Brechin in December.

Watt was able to give the team more attacking width in his first start for a while whilst Millar brought a more combative edge to the midfield. He was deemed to have taken it too far within the first two minutes having been cautioned for a foul on Darren Dods. This might affected some players but Millar stuck to his game and never gave the opponents any peace through the game.

Forfar looked as if they had suffered a blow when Dale Hilson pulled up with less than five minutes gone and was subbed shortly afterwards. It was the substitute though Danny Denholm that had the final say in the game.

Both teams looked to be struggling to get any grip on the game and although Stenhousemuir matched the Loons for much of the game they and indeed Forfar created little of note in the first period. There were stages that the passing game looked to be starting but usually ended with a misplaced pass and the experienced Forfar defence coped with most things without too much bother. The closest that the visitors came was a long range Bryan Hodge free kick that went just over in 30 minutes and a Ciaran Summers effort that lacked direction in the 42^nd minute after he had burst through the middle For Forfar the closest that they came was when Michael Travis had a header saved from a corner kick in the 40^th minute.

The second half saw Hodge fire over again after a decent spell of possession by Stenhousemuir before Ross Meechan stopped an opportunity at the other end with a well- timed interception to stop a dangerous attack. There then followed a strike by Martyn Fotheringham that crept the wrong side of the post for the Forfar player with Greg Fleming wrong footed.

Both teams made changes as the game progressed to try and get a foothold on the game but it took until the 70^th minute before the next real chance came for either team. Greg Fleming wasn’t able to hold onto a crossball but redeemed himself by saving the rebound from substitute James Dale and then Summers sliced the ball backwards and it had to be cleared off the line by Alan Lithgow. Whether that belied nerves in the Stenhousemuir camp was unclear but Forfar took the lead minutes later when Denholm tucked a Gavin Swankie cross into the net.

In the closing stages Martin Grehan came on and he looked as if he might score the equaliser in time added on when he rose to meet a McCormack cross but his effort though a rare attempt on target lacked power and was comfortably saved by Rab Douglas. The final whistle blew just after this and thus Forfar were victorious and moved up to second whilst Stenhousemuir drew closer to the relegation play-off as their closest rivals Ayr United drew with Morton. This means that the meeting of the two clubs next week could be quite significant and Stenhousemuir will have to do it without the manager being able to give his input in real time as he once again will be absent from the dugout as he serves the second game in his two match ban.