Several years ago, Inside Left took part in the indoor football league up in the Kincorth Sports Center in Aberdeen. Our team, Racing Club, had just completed our first match in the league, a handsome 10-1 victory over a hapless bunch of over-40′s the name of which escape me but whose goalkeeper looked like Brian Gunn. We left the venue convinced that we’d do well in the league if the standard of opposition would be that low and retired to the pub that sponsored us for post-match celebrations. The next week we won again, not by the same scoreline but we found ourselves top of the league after a few games. Easy, we thought. Then, one week we played a team that we’d heard about from the other teams in the league, a team the mere mention of whose name was usually followed by a long silences and much gazing at the floor.
When it was our turn to take on this apparent super team – called Cults Hotel Strikers – we certainly got off to a very good start. Almost straight from the kick-off we scored, 1-0 up in the second minute against the best team in the league.
Like Racing Club, Hamilton Accies made a promising start to the season with wins over Dundee United, Caley Thistle, Aberdeen and Motherwell, a run of results that had the First Division champions sitting on top of the league. But like Racing Club learned all those years ago, scoring too early in a game against stronger opposition is not always a good thing: we lost 13-1 on the day, and Reid’s Hamilton fared only a little better in their game today. I relate this true story, because the feeling of having scored against one of the super teams in the league was probably the same feeling that Hamilton Manager Billy Reid experienced when James McArthur scored in the second minute of their fixture against Glasgow Rangers at Ibrox today.
Before the Accies had a chance to settle into the game, they found themselves having to defend against an enraged Rangers side that has seen many changes from the defeat to Hearts last week. Walter Smith choose to start without Broadfoot, Darcheville and Adam and brought in Davis, Miller, Beasley instead. The changes brought immediate results as Kenny Miller scored his 7th league goal of the season to level the scores. A hat trick from the on-form Kris Boyd had Rangers’ lead restored with half an hour to go, albeit against 10 men by this stage. Hamilton’s Martin Canning had been sent off just after the break for a trip on Boyd in the penalty area. The red card was Canning’s second in three games, the first coming against the 2-1 defeat against other half of the Old Firm two weeks ago.
Goals from Kyle Lafferty, Nacho Novo and Steven Davis completed the rout on 90 minutes, ending a day of misery for Reid and the Accies support who made the short journey up the M74 to Glasgow. The 7-1 final scoreline reflects Rangers’ superiority in the game and Walter Smith will be happy with the result that cuts Celtic’s lead at the top of the table back to 4 points. With Celtic playing tomorrow against Hibs, it’ll be an anxious wait for Rangers to see if their efforts today where worth it. For Hamilton, it’s back to the drawing board as St Mirren’s win away at Falkirk pushes the Accies back to the bottom of the table.
The good news for Billy Reid is that there are only four points between themselves and 8th spot. The bad news is that their next opposition is Hibernian, a team they’ve not beaten in 13 attempts. While the league continues to be this close, defeats on the scale of today’s are not too damaging, but they’d want to keep close with the 4 teams above them before the gap becomes too big and the prospect of relegation looms large.