Honest Men are made to look ordinary

Alloa....1, Ayr United...1 Confusion reigned in Clackmannanshire yesterday. Here was a team featuring some big players with big reputations up against the first division's only fully part-time outfit, but it was genuinely difficult to tell which was which. Only Alloa's desperate backs-against-the-wall efforts to hang on for a draw in the last 10 minutes betrayed the truth that they're the newly promoted team, while their opponents, Ayr United, are apparently title contenders.

The season might be only a week old, but already these are slightly worrying times for Ayr United supporters. And those who travelled to Recreation Park yesterday looking for some crumbs of comfort after their team's midweek CIS Insurance Cup defeat, at the hands of Dumbarton, would have returned home disappointed, and certainly less optimistic than they were just one week ago.

For Alloa, on the other hand, things are looking good. Indeed, Ayr fans are unlikely to appreciate the irony of the fact that Alloa seem to be coping better, having lost some of their best players, than their own team is after beefing-up their squad with former Premier league players, supposedly in anticipation of a concerted push to win promotion this season.

On the face of it a draw may not seem too bad, but of real concern to Ayr will be their performance, in particular during a first half largely dominated by the part timers of Alloa. It may not have matched the performance, or result, of last weeks 2-1 win over Raith Rovers, but for Alloa manager Terry Christie it was a satisfying afternoon, and a result he would surely have settled for before the match.

Certainly he will have derived immense satisfaction from the first half, which gave the home side a deserved lead at the interval. Playing with enthusiasm and aggression, they were consistently first to the ball.

The Ayr new boys displayed mixed form: John Hughes was a dominating figure in defence, especially in the air, but Pat McGinlay was the provider of a number of slack passes. Paul Lovering was one player whose commitment almost matched that of Alloa's players, but there was a lack of cohesion about Ayr, and very little in the way of patient build-up.

Ayr attacks were rare indeed in the first half. Richard Huxford was shown a yellow card for wrestling Gary Teale to the ground near the goal line, but typically the away team failed to capitalise on the free kick. Then, in 34 minutes, Alloa made the breakthrough they'd been threatening.

Huxford's cross from the right was headed clear by Hughes, but only to Willie Irvine, whose volley somehow found its way through a crowded box, creeping inside the diving Marius Rovde's left post.

Unsurprisingly Ayr rewrote the script for the second half, coming out with all guns blazing for a 45-minute assault on the home side. Their supporters seemed to anticipate as much, decamping from the visitors' stand to the open terrace behind the Alloa goal. A police message requesting that the fans return to their own stand went largely unheeded until a brief but torrential downpour sent the reprimanded Ayr fans scurrying for the shelter of the away supporters stand.

From there they witnessed endless pressure, with nothing to show for it until substitute Mickey Reynolds was brought down by Frank Conway. Eddie Annand stepped up to score his second penalty of the new season, and to make amends for a couple of bad misses and a frustrating tendency to go backwards instead of forwards.

The United offensive came off the rails slightly in the last 15 minutes, but that had as much to do with resilient, at times desperate, defending from the home side with, in the heart of defence, Craig Valentine playing a role similar to Hughes in the Ayr defence. On this occasion, though, Valentine's shouts rang louder around the ground than his more illustrious opposite number, and it was a dejected looking Ayr side who traipsed from the park at the final whistle.

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