Season 2010/2011: Match 16: East Stirlingshire v Montrose

On Friday night I was in Glasgow to witness Liam Gallagher's second coming as lead singer of the abysmally-named Beady Eye.

I was accompanied by a Falkirk-based friend, and before setting off to Glasgow that night we were trying to decide what to do on Saturday. I'd forgotten that the Mighty Mo were also in town to take on homeless East Stirlingshire, but when we spotted that one on the fixtures list, it seemed to be written in the stars.

So at 3pm on Saturday I found myself straddling the thin line between lager hangover and cider drunkeness as we entered Ochilview (or Lesser Firs Park as the stadium announcer would have it).

As is their style, Montrose were honking in the first half and could easily have been a few goals down, having inexplicably survived when Shire's claims for a clear penalty were waved away. They were actually only one goal down at the break, but they'd been very poor and were lucky even to have nil in their own "goals for" column.

The previous week I'd seen The Tosh go into psycho Terminator mode when Hugh Davidson accidentally got in the striker's way. This week it was Nicky Smith incurring The Tosh's rage, and the 1,000-yard stare focused on the youngster was enough to scare the fuck out of me, sitting 50 yards away in the stand.

The Tosh didn't make it for the second half, and I'm impressed that Steven Tweed had the balls to sub him. Martin Boyle came on to a standing ovation from the vocal away fans, and made an instant impact, levelling the scores inside 30 seconds.

Nicky Smith took pelters from the small group of fans sitting beside me in the stand, and when he scored what proved to be the winner, he wasted no time in turning to his critics and giving them a "who's laughing now pricks?" point.

Montrose were a different team in the second half with the introductions of Boyle and Fraser Milligan, who was a constant threat down the right. They deserved their win based on that second half performance, but if the match had ended after 45 minutes Shire would have been worthy winners.

That's the first Montrose away game I've been to since Jim Leishman got sent to the stand against Brechin City many moons ago, and it was a good laugh, especially sitting in the "away" "end".

Surely we can't finish bottom of the league now?.....

Man of the Match: A few contenders from the second half. Stephen McNally led the team well, but some of his passing was a bit awry at times. The defence was mostly solid, and had to be given Romiro Gonzalez's continuing attempts to redfine goalkeeping as a comedy dance routine. But there can only be one real winner - Martin Boyle, fleet-footed goalscorer extraordinaire.