Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
SNOW JOKE AS LIVI BOSS HITS OUT AT FANS
1 3 BY ANDY NEWPORT DAVIE MARTINDALE has fired a frosty blast at the Rangers support for making a mockery of Scottish football after snowball shenanigans delayed the start of the second half by nine minutes at Livingston yesterday.
Giovanni van
Bronckhorst was left grinning as the Dutchman marked his first
Premiership clash in charge with a 3-1 victory.
But Livi boss Martindale refused to see the funny side as fans lobbed snow cleared from the Tony Macaroni Arena pitch at each other before turning their attention on police and photographers at half time.
But the start of the second half delayed when home keeper Max Stryjek became their target.
Referee David Munro only gave the go-ahead for the second half to resume once the pile of icy missiles had been cleared from the Pole’s goalmouth.
In bizarre scenes, Martindale ordered his players to warm up at the side of the pitch while he marched on to the park to remonstrate with the officials.
And he laid into the travelling Gers support again after the final whistle. Martindale said: “We shouldn’t be standing here talking about the doughballs with the snowballs.
“I just don’t understand it. You could maybe see if it your team is getting beat and there’s a bit of frustration there.
“But when your team is winning 2-1, to hold up the second half – I don’t understand that at all.
“I just think it’s a little bit of a blight on Scottish football – it’s on telly!
“It doesn’t look good for Rangers, it doesn’t look good for Livingston and it doesn’t look good for Scottish football.”
Scott Arfield and Joe Aribo put Rangers in control early on before Livi striker Bruce Anderson exploited some more ropey defending from the champions to pull a goal back.
But a late header from Fashion Sakala (below) sealed victory for van Bronckhorst’s team.
The new Gers boss said: “We controlled the game and in the first 20-25 minutes scored two goals.
“We knew the chances would come in that manner, with Scott making his runs into the spaces.
“The first goal was excellent and the second goal was also really good in terms of possession from our side and a great shot by Joe.
“After that we lost our intent a little bit. We were a bit sloppy in our speed of play and going to 2-1 made it a real game.”