Binos make a point from late comeback
Stirling turn the tables on their Berwick opponents
Stirling Albion .......... 2 Berwick Rovers ......... 2 Stirling Albion pinched a vital point with a dramatic late comeback at Forthbank – just as Berwick appeared to be coasting to victory.
Shielfield boss John Coughlin is probably still wondering how his side failed to see this one out, having established a two-goal lead at the break thanks to former Bino Lee Hamilton and Aaron Murrell.
Greg Rutherford wasted a pair of glorious chances to put the game to bed and trialist Aiden Malone pulled one back before Sean Dickson struck a terrific 88th-minute equaliser.
Incredibly, Stirling almost won it in stoppage time when Blair Henderson’s shot was cleared off the line by Euan Spark but it would have been a massive injustice if Berwick had lost.
Binos boss Dave Mackay made four changes to the team beaten by Montrose the previous week, two of them enforced as Willie Robertson was injured and Calvin Colquhoun suspended. Frazer Wright and Connor McLaren dropped to the bench as Ross Forsyth, Ross McGeachie, Ross Smith and Jack
McCue all returned to the team in a 3-52 formation.
Berwick had beaten Annan 4-1 the previous week to leapfrog Stirling in the lower reaches of the Ladbrokes League 2 table but had lost eight of their previous 10 outings prior to that. They defeated the Binos 3-2 at Shielfield in early December but only four players from each side who featured that night started at the weekend following a busy month in the transfer market.
An icy wind was blowing right up the Forth and by half-time Albion’s frozen fans saw their side trailing by two goals and having lost Ross McMillan and Liam Caddis to injury.
Albion had taken the lead in every game in 2017 up until now and almost did so again but Henderson was thwarted by a good save from on-loan Kilmarnock keeper Devlin Mackay.
Two minutes later, Berwick were in front. An inswinging corner from the left caused panic in the home defence and Hamilton, against his former club, pounced from close range.
From a Stirling perspective, the rest of the half was horrible to watch. Berwick dictated most of the play and it was no surprise when they added a second goal towards the interval. Murrell, on loan from Dundee United, got away from a defender far too easily and planted the ball into the corner.
There were other opportunities for the visitors but Stirling had offered almost nothing and it was hard to see any way back into the match.
Albion were better in the second half – they couldn’t have been any worse – and Mackay had a lucky escape when he dropped the ball at the corner of the box without realising Henderson was lurking behind him but the keeper managed to retrieve the situation and avoid an embarrassing blunder.
Coughlin’s men were largely unruffled, though, and should have finished the game when Rutherford dragged an effort wide with only Chris Smith to beat, then the same player dithered when sent clean through the middle and Smith grabbed the ball at his feet.
That was with five minutes left and no-one could have envisaged what was to follow. Malone, previously with Queen’s Park, netted from close in after good work by Darren Smith, who picked him out with a low cross from the right, to reduce the deficit.
It looked like being no more than a footnote but then Dickson, who rescued a dramatic draw with Arbroath at the end of November, made it 2-2 with a perfect, measured finish into the bottom lefthand corner from outside the box.
The former East Fife and Stenhousemuir midfielder has been one of Albion’s best players in recent games and was rewarded with his fifth goal of the season.
The draw was enough to lift Stirling above Edinburgh City and into eighth place, four points clear of bottom club Cowdenbeath, who have two games in hand but it’s only one win in nine matches now and this weekend’s visit to second-placed Arbroath will be demanding to say the least.