Published: Wednesday, 27th January, 2010 12:17pm

Relief as Pars scrape through to finally meet Celtic

by Ally McRoberts

Comments (4) | Print | Email

Stenhousemuir 1 Dunfermline 2 (after extra time)

IT was far from beautiful but some at the club will feel Andy Kirk deserves a statue in Halbeath Road after his extra-time goal secured a fifth round tie against Celtic.

The striker's deflected effort rolled slowly into the corner to secure a £200,000 payday but, if you thought the fans were relieved, spare a thought for this trio.

Faced with losing out on the cash windfall of facing the Hoops, chairman John Yorkston knows they can now pay their SFA fines for the huge blunder from the first match.

Calum Woods won't forever carry the tag - harsh though it would have been - of the man who 'lost' Pars the tie with his cameo sub appearance in that match.

But the biggest relief must be from the unnamed Pars official who made the mistake of not checking the SFA suspended list in the first place and who must have been sweating buckets as they toiled big-time against the Warriors.

It was a high stakes match anyway with Celtic lying in wait but they had a little extra riding on this match and will know just how close Jim McIntyre's men came to blowing it.

The Pars just weren't at it.

They were hustled and harried out of their stride by a Stenhousemuir team that burned with injustice over the Pars' re-instatement and that wanted to wrench some pride back after the 7-1 defeat at East End Park.

They didn't give Athletic's creative players an inch of space, flew into tackles, won headers all evening and threw themselves in front of shots at goal.

A huge away support crammed into Ochilview - the match had to be delayed for 10 minutes to let them in - and the visitors had a couple of half chances with Kirk sending a half volley wide and David Graham bursting through but firing past the post in the first 15 minutes.

For all the challenges and tackles they won, Stenny rarely troubled Greg Fleming who was good on crosses and helped by a resolute back four.

The problem was further up the pitch where Nick Phinn, Steven Bell, Willie Gibson and Joe Cardle just couldn't get on the ball to create.

The Pars resorted to punting the ball hopefully towards Kirk but he was dominated in the air by the Warriors centre backs.

The one piece of football they played resulted in a goal in 35 minutes when Bell finally broke free and sprayed the ball wide to Graham.

A quick ball into the box was collected by Cardle who turned inside his man and dinked the ball over Chris McCluskey in goal.

A mix-up in the home defence almost allowed Kirk to nod in a second goal and Phinn volleyed past from Graham's cross.

The second half was awful but came to life in 66 minutes when the referee - George Peat in disguise anyone? - spotted a tug in the box that no-one else did and surprised even Stenny by awarding a penalty.

Kevin Bradley converted expertly and the Second Division outfit looked the more likely winner approaching 90 minutes.

Gibson did thump in a fine free kick which the keeper saved brilliantly but extra time was another non-event.

With penalties looming as both sides continued to cancel each other out, Cardle found Kirk in the box and his weak shot took a nick off a Stenny boot and crawled across the line in the 111th minute.