Stirling Albion 2-2 Clyde
Clyde will host Stirling in a Fourth Round replay at Broadwood, after an excellent performance at Forthbank today during what was an entertaining William Hill Scottish Cup tie.
Barry Ferguson made three changes to the team following the league defeat to The Binos a fortnight ago, with short term signing Jordan McMillan, John Gibson and Chris Smith coming in for Michael Oliver, Brett Long and the injured Scott Linton.
A fairly even first half ended with a 1-1 scoreline following two good goals. The home side took an early lead when the dangerous Dylan Bikey managed to escape Ross Perry on the left wing and, after cutting inside, his slightly deflected shot found the bottom corner of the net.
However, Clyde’s effort level was clear to see and a well-deserved equaliser came after 24 minutes. David Gormley did very well to find Peter MacDonald with a clever disguised pass and The Bully Wee’s top scorer made no mistake, beating Cammy Binnie from the edge of the box.
Clyde started the second half strongly and MacDonald’s snap shot was well held by Binnie.
On 62 minutes, MacDonald sparked a big celebration amongst an excellent away support when, following a ball into the box, Sean Higgins set him up and he smashed a low shot into the far corner of the net for his 16th goal of the season.
That didn’t halt The Bully Wee’s dominance of the match and MacDonald had two more chances, firstly when he failed to find the target after being given a sight of goal and again putting the ball wide, after good play by Gormley once more.
In between those chances, a rare Stirling attack led to Bikey shooting just wide from a tight angle.
With 76 minutes on the clock, there was a major turning point when MacDonald was brought down by Binnie and the referee awarded a penalty after receiving advice from the assistant referee. MacDonald took the spot kick, but Binnie produced a fine save to push the ball out for a corner.
That gave The Binos renewed hope and Connor McLaren almost converted a deep cross.
Bikey was to punish Clyde once more though, as he pounced on a loose ball in the box and gave John Gibson no chance to make it 2-2 with only a few minutes left to play.
Despite Clyde pushing foward again and forcing a series of corners and pressure on goal, the last clear-cut chance fell to Stirling as substitute Blair Henderson had an excellent chance to take advantage of a break of the ball, but Gibson did superbly to get a hand on his shot as the ball went over the bar.
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