Clyde v Stirling Albion

Recap

The Bully Wee secured a promotion play-off spot at Broadwood today, thanks to a comprehensive victory over Stirling Albion.

Barry Ferguson made one change to the team following last week’s match at Hampden, with David Marsh returning from suspension to take the place of Jamie Watson.

The Bully Wee had the ball in the net in the opening minutes, but David Marsh was ruled to be offside after heading home from John Gemmell’s cross.

Marsh soon got on the scoresheet though, giving Clyde the lead after good work by Mark McLaughlin and Chris Smith to create a second chance after a corner was cleared by the Stirling defence.

However, minutes later at the other end, the visitors missed a glorious chance to equalise when the ball broke to Moses Olanrewaju in front of goal but the winger’s shot sailed clean over the bar.

Scott Linton was then denied by Albion ‘keeper Chris Smith at the edge of the box, before Clyde survived a scare when John Gibson partially spilled a low cross.

As half-time approached, Marsh got his second goal of the game, getting on the end of a superb cross by Ross Millen to head the ball into the corner of the net.

Early in the second half, Jordan Kirkpatrick’s long range effort was comfortably held by Smith, before Linton shot wide after doing the hard work and setting himself up with a good first touch.

After 62 minutes, it looked like the win was secure when a fine run and pass by Kirkpatrick put David Gormley in on goal and, after his first shot was saved, the forward squeezed the ball in from the rebound to make it 3-0.

The Binos’ Ross Smith was shown a straight red card for a petulant lunge on Linton, before substitute Scott Burns scored a fantastic consolation goal from 25 yards.

Just before the full-time whistle, Kirkpatrick’s audacious effort from a wide angle hit the crossbar but a final score of 3-1 ensured that Clyde would enter the League 1 play-offs and a semi-final against Elgin City over two legs this week.