wee men, big ground

In a game which had Scotland's highest attendance (the winter break applies only to the SPL), Newcastle's young stars stunned the Govan faithful with a last minute winner. 

With the kick off being delayed for 15 minutes to the let the crowd of over ten thousand in, expectation of a good game was strong, and although Rangers will feel hard done by the result, the public were treated to an exciting and incident packed game.

Rangers began the match well and forced a corner within the opening minutes, the resulting kick causing a familiar panic in the Newcastle defence as they struggled to clear. This spurred Rangers on and with barely 5 minutes gone they took the lead.

This buoyed the partisan crowd with ironic Glasgow humour, F*** off you English B**t**d* closely followed by rousing renditions of Rule Britannia. The growing excitement in the crowd was matched by the Light Blue youngsters on the pitch. Stephen Dobie crashed a header off the base of the post and within a minute McLean was clean through but Toon keeper Adam Collin stood up well and the resultant shot blazed over the bar. 

This let-off seemed to inject a little more energy into Newcastle who forced a corner on the 20th minute. The resulting clearance fell kindly to defender Lee Norton who rifled in a shot on goal which Gers keeper Graham Smith did well to hold. 

The vistorse were beginning to spread the ball about with confidence and in the 29th minute this was rewarded with a well worked goal. However, the equaliser seemed to pacify both teams rather than inspire and the rest of the half was played out without incident. 

This was to change as soon as the second half commenced. Within a minute of the restart, McLean connected with a cross from the right which was inches away from given Rangers the lead. Almost immediately Newcastle replied, and a good pass to Lewis Guy split open the home defence, Chopra just failing to connect with the cross. 

Again play switched ends immediately and there were howls of derision as Gers frontman Brighton was judged to be offside. Rangers kept up the pressure and Brighton once more made a good run but took just a second too long to shoot, giving enough time for Ramage to get a saving tackle in. 

The Gers continued to push forward and Dobie again went close with a long range effort, the ball skidding past Collin's right hand post. Within a minute they were on the attack again with McLean and McHale linking up well, forcing Collin to punch clear. Dobie picked the clearance but his poor shot was easily held by the relieved Magpies keeper. 

The home side maintained their pressure with Dobie again involved in the action, testing Collin at his left-hand post. On the 72nd minute the pressure looked to have paid dividends when Gers substitute Jimmy Gibson was felled in the box by a rash tackle from Dunn. 

Up stepped Dobie and he fired the penalty far to the right hand side of Collin, who did brilliantly to reach the ball and make a memorable one-handed save. The penalty miss seemed to spur Rangers on and they went close twice within a minute, a header by Gibson flying over the bar and a wild shot from Dobie going wide when a simple pass to his right would have left McHale clean through.

Again Rangers pushed forward forcing a corner. The kick swung in and the impressive Collin made his first mistake of the match, fumbling the ball and nearly gifting Dobie a goal.

As the game edged closer to its conclusion Newcastle made a rare foray towards the Rangers goal, which nearly paid off in dramatic fashion. Chris McLeod lost his concentration in front of his own goal and his weak pass was intercepted by toon sub Neale McDermott whose fierce shot whistled narrowly wide of the post.

Then came Newcastle's late winner and within a minute the referee had blown for time, to the delight of the Newcastle players and the derision of the Rangers support.

Special thanks to our tartan toon reporter, Steve Ednie. 

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