Brave effort not enough

Brechin City 2-5 Clyde

CLYDE trounced Brechin by five goals to two but suffered the agony of failing to get promotion to the Premierleague thanks to Inverness Caledonian Thistle's victory over St Johnstone.

Clyde dominated right from the start and took the lead in two minutes. Andy Smith headed the ball back across goal and Pat Keogh headed home from close range.

Brechin hit back and almost equalised in 10 minutes when a curling shot from Roddy Black forced a superb save from Bryn Halliwell.

Back came Clyde and in 17 minutes Keogh headed wide from close range with keeper Kevin Budinauckas beaten.

The promotion chasers made it 2-0 in 20 minutes when a shot from Stephen McConalogue was parried by Budinauckas and Keogh followed up to fire home the rebound. It was 3-0 five minutes later when Smith headed home a Kevin Fotheringham free-kick from close range.

Clyde added a fourth in 57 minutes when Keogh dived to head the ball goalwards and strike partner Smith dived to head home.

Goal number five came in 79 minutes when Keogh darted through the middle and drilled home a low shot to complete his hat-trick.

Brechin hit back a minute later and when Graham Gibson was tripped in the box Chris Templeman scored from the spot. Brechin had the final word two minutes from time when Templeman broke on the left and shot home.

Clyde manager Alan Kernaghan said: "We are all very disappointed but we will go away and get our heads straight in time for next season. It is hard to have led from the front for so long and ultimately not to succeed.

"We have led for nine tenths of the season but we are still a good team and the players know that. We haven't got the prize that we set out to get at the start of the season.

"The destination of the title was out of our hands and I didn't think that St Johnstone would be able to get a result up at Inverness.

"It remains to be seen if Inverness take their place in the Premierleague and Partick Thistle might be doing cartwheels at the moment and I feel that is wrong as you should not get rewarded for failure."

Brechin City: Budinauckas, Dowie, King (McCulloch 35), Black (Boylan 64), White, Johnson, Winter, McLeish, Templeman, Gibson, Hampshire. Subs not used: Hay, Deas, Mitchell.

Clyde: Halliwell, McLaughlin, McCluskey, McCann, Keogh, Gibson, Ross (Harty 83), McConalogue (Gilhaney 75), Fotheringham (Doyle 79), Marshall, Smith. Subs not used: Morrison, Hagen.

Referee: D McDonald.

Copyright 2004 SMG Sunday Newspapers Ltd.
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