League – Matchday4

A five-goal deficit in the first half was too much even for a spirited Giffnock team to overcome – and despite a healthy slew of chances and a rousing 2^nd half performance, the wait goes on for an away victory this season.

A bright start, in sparkling autumn sunshine on the Clydeside riviera saw Giffnock make the early running as couple of probing runs saw Jack carving out a couple of decent chances, but it was Port Glasgow that struck first scoring in the 6^th minute, then the 11^th minute, the 16^th, the 20^th and finally the 33^rd – it what could be only be described as a disappointing half of football for the Giffnock 07’s.

The pitch, falling as it did into the ‘agricultural’ category, was not helping matters – and things took a swift turn for the worse when keeper Jack, not long back from serious injury, found himself on the receiving end of a stud-to-hand incident in the 17^th minute which left him unable to continue and saw Charlie gamely stepping in at short notice to take over goalkeeping duties.

Despite the goal-fest against Giffnock, the boys eventually found some rhythm to play some decent football and were unlucky not to get on the score sheet before the half was out with a good cross in from Matan finding Jake in the box – and new-start Ryan making some good runs down the wing.

Without doubt lesser teams would have crumbled in the 2^nd half – but Giffnock came out fighting; the combination of insighful half time coaching and invigorating salty-sea air working wonders  as they scored after only 4 mins of play to pull one back; a powerful shot from Harrison leaving the Port Glasgow keeper no chance.

Suddenly talk amongst the away support was of a game of 2 halves as Giffnock showed great tenacity and team spirit to start pressing the opposition, carving out several chances and frustrating the port glasgow forwards with solid defending from the back 4. The link up play down the right was especially fruitful for Giffnock with Matan, Ricardo, Jake and Harrison working well to get the ball into scoring positions.

The rest of the 2^nd half was a very close-fought tussle with Giffnock continuing to push. A couple more goals from Port Glasgow were not enough to dent Giffnock’s team spirit and they continued to work hard for each other. Turning on the style Giffnock were rewarded with 2 late goals from Jake and Harrison that saw them level the half 3-3 at the blowing of the full-time whistle.

As the boys picked over the bones of a difficult game, the fans were adamant that there were a lot of positives to take from the match and, once  the wrinkles of a slow start have been ironed out, they will be a match for anybody!