City Reserves struggle against Airdrie 
After their good showing on Thursday night, City Reserves struggled to get into Sunday’s away game at the Airdrie Leisure Centre, going down 3-1 to Airdrie United.
From the start, City failed to maintain possession or get any kind of consistent passing moves together to trouble the Airdrie defence. Indeed Airdrie who have relegation worries showed more appetite for the match and they were the team to open the scoring ten minutes intothe first half.
In the course of a tough encounter both Lyndsey Anderson and Sarah Major had to come off with serious injuries to make way for Amy Hillan and Lyndsey Birrell, the only two substitutes City had available. As it happened, Lyndsey Birrell was also carrying a slight injury but there were limited options available to boss Fiona Baker and Birrell took to the field. City’s luck then deserted them further, as Airdrie proceeded to go two goals up just before half time and as the teams came off at the break, it looked as if the second half would be an up hill struggle for the visitors.
Much to the delight of Manager Baker, City were a lot better in the second period, as they finally began to get their foot on the ball, stringing some passes together and testing the opposition goal. However, just as City looked like they might get into the game more mishap came when a poor challenge on sub Amy Hillan saw her having to limp off with an ankle injury leaving City to fight on for the remaining forty minutes, with only ten players. Credit to the Glasgow side as they still pushed on the attack, trying desperately to get something out of the match. With less than five minutes remaining, they got the reward their hard work deserved as Laura Crossan found the back of the net with a cool strike from 12 yards.
For the last few minutes of the game City pushed forward trying to get on level terms and had one or two good chances to get the elusive equaliser.Their efforts proved to be in vain as in the dying minutes they were caught on the break with a long ball over the top for the opposition to chase and sweep the ball home, allowing the home side to wrap up all three points. Points they probably need quite badly as the relegation battle continues at the bottom of the First Division.
Reserves Manager Fiona Barker commented after the match. “We were poor for 45 minutes and this let Airdrie into the game very early on, it was unusual for us to start so poorly especially after playing so well on Thursday night against Toryglen,
“We had a few girls missing due to injury and a few others were playing through injury. Having only two subs didn't help, thus we went down to 10 players early in the 2nd half. When we managed to pull it back to 2-1, this showed just how hard the girls had worked in the second half, but sadly, it was to little too late.”
26.10.10
