Narrow win for Earra-Ghaidheal

Oban Earra-Ghaidheal 1 Mull Thistle 0

A TIGHT game last Saturday ended in a 1-0 victory for Oban Earra-Ghaidheal against Mull Thistle, despite a couple of late scares from the travelling team. Earra-Ghaidheal fielded a new player, Kevin Roy, in defence and he put in a fantastic performance.

Mull would have been happy going into the break level with some great work in the middle of the park preventing Oban from getting the ball to their wide men Kevin Keen and Marc Blair who both looked dangerous on the odd occasion they got the ball.

Despite the wide men not getting much service, the home team managed to muster half a dozen chances through the middle and only some inspired goalkeeping by Mull’s Sean McGee kept them in it.

The half time team talk inspired Oban to get the ball out wider and this was the catalyst for some brilliant attacking football.

Kevin Keen on the left wing was getting plenty service from man of the match David Smith and his midfield counterparts Aidan Campbell and Keith Astles and his balls into the box were causing all sorts of trouble.

With half-an-hour to go, Earra-Ghaidheal made two changes, Allan McKechnie replacing Marc Blair on the right and Murdo MacKenzie placing Keith Astles in the middle of the park.

McKechnie continued from where Blair left off, putting some wonderful balls in behind the defence. The clock was ticking and the game seemed to be heading for a draw when Alan Buchanan rifled a shot into the far top corner from the right hand side of the box.

Thistle came out fighting after this and were extremely unlucky not to score from a great passage of play down the left which saw a close range effort from Shaun MacLean miss the target from a few yards out under pressure from goalkeeper Adam Mekler.

Loose play in the middle of the park allowed Shaun Fisher a clear run through on the Oban goal, only to be maliciously taken down from behind on the edge of the box by someone who he thought was a good friend, fellow Bunessan boy Stephen McCracken.

The resulting free kick was ultimately wasted by Daniel Watson who smashed it straight at the grateful Hungarian between the sticks.

Oban were happy to see out the final few minutes with no further scares. Special thanks to Calum Fox who marshalled the game superbly and to Soroba House for the great food and drink after the match.