It looked as though we would pay a familiar penalty for failing to capitalise on our early superiority. After Humphrey grabbed the chance offered by Cregg’s slip we played some lovely football. The players made the best of the true surface and lots of passes were completed.
St Mirren looked like a side that deserved to be holding up the league at that stage. They had no rhythm and the only tactic was to shell the ball towards Higdon. Motherwell’s inability to kill them off gave the visitors hope. No doubt the message in the away dressing room at the break would be that we had not taken our chances and a one goal deficit could be overtaken. Whatever the message, it was effective.
After their equaliser, most in the modest crowd (4,384) expected that our much delayed home win would not arrive and the few hundred Buddies found their voice. How did we lose the initiative? That analysis will surely occupy the minds of Craig and Archie over the next few days. “If that’s our form, we’ll have to do a lot better if we’re to stay in third place”, was the manager’s thought after the game.
A crowd of just over four thousand is poor for any SPL game but when a team in third place attracts so few to a home game there must be a cause for concern. The poor weather didn’t help but the £22 price set for the away stand is almost designed to deter visiting fans. And the level of customer care for the home fans must plumb the depths when the catering outlets run out of hot snacks before half time.
In July the club announced that catering would be taken “in-house” and Leeann Dempster was quoted saying, “Every club knows that it cannot take supporters for granted and here at Motherwell we are working flat out to enhance and improve every aspect of the match day experience delivering high quality and a welcoming feel for all our fans....... our catering on match day will be the best we can make it....”. An explanation is overdue.