Season 2013/2014: Match 8: Montrose 2 Peterhead 3 (Scottish Professional Football League Two)

The ingredients for yesterday's encounter between mediocre Montrose and promotion-chasing Peterhead:

• Two pints of lager and a chilli burger from The Picture House
• Four friends, three of them making their first visit as paying punters at the North Sea Nou Camp.
• The insane ramblings of my lesser-spotted press corps colleague.
• A sublime Garry Wood strike from 20 yards out to open the scoring.
• A less sublime Alan Campbell own goal four minutes into the second half to level the scores, the big pudding resorting to type after his recent sterling performances.
•  A well-taken goal from professional walloper Rory McAllister, the striker sent clear then rounding Stuart McKenzie and shooting into the empty net.
• McAllister's second 'goal' -  a lob that bounced down off the crossbar and landed in front of the line, but deemed to be across it by the far side linesman.
• Terry Masson's great strike for an injury time consolation, the substitute controlling on the edge of the box and firing into the bottom corner.

All of it - Montrose scoring a comedy own goal, Garry Wood and Bryan Deasley working hard up front, third-world refereeing, the random gibberish being spouted in the stand, Rory McAllister being a dick - was entirely in keeping with type.

By the end, it had all become too much for George Shields to deal with, the Montrose assistant manager randomly launching balls into the Peterhead dugout, possibly in an attempt to spark a 30-man brawl and have the match abandoned.

The result leaves Montrose third from bottom of Serie Z-6, with the chance to go second bottom if Elgin beat Queen's Park in their game in hand.

Garden must go? Hardly - but for the spectacularly unfunny comedy refereeing, Montrose were generally a match for Peterhead, McAllister excepted.

I know I say it every week - but there's a desperate need for a few more bodies (preferably some of them living) at Link's Park.

Do we dare to dream that we can be better than mediocre?

Man of the Match: If we were taking both teams into account, it would easily be McAllister, who was head and shoulders above those around him. From a Montrose point of view, I'd go with Garry Wood for a great opening strike and his typically tireless shift up front.