His words of wisdom seemed to have done the trick as the visitors were two goals to the good after little more than ten minutes. The first goal came when captain Dave Hendry drilled home from twenty yards to send the sizeable FPC support into raptures. However, the moment was wasted as Frazzle issued his first ever club fine for an outrageously cheesy celebration.
“Ra Corner” doubled there lead with a similar strike moments later, but this time it was the prolific Joe who stretched his lead at the top of the scoring charts with an unstoppable right-footed drive. The travelling support could hardly believe their eyes as a run of dire results seemed to be coming to an end.
However, in true FPC style, it fell apart. The gaffer made a few changes at the interval, and the performance dipped as new faces struggled to gel.
A dubious freekick was awarded to the home side shortly after the re-start and the giant defender thundered an unstoppable strike into the top corner of the net from fully thirty yards.
Big Gav did his utmost to sell the jerseys shortly afterwards as he committed an unforgivable and entirely needless handball inside the penalty area. The home sides centre half stepped up to dispatch the penalty with their second real shot on goal to claim his second of the match.
The home side then started to dominate proceedings, with Farmer showing exactly why he was awarded POTY last season with a few wonderful stops. However, it was FPC who claimed the fifth goal of the match against the run of play as Joe bundled the ball over the line from a low, driven cross. Hardly a classic, but it was enough to send Frazzle leaping like an idiot on the touchline.
Sadly, FPC failed to hold their nerve, and their lead. A seemingly harmless ball was played into the FPC box and the sound of the referees whistle seemed to baffle everyone else on the pitch as he pointed to the spot for Clyde’s second penalty of the game. The whistler in question was unavailable for comment after the match. The outcome was never really in doubt as the massive stopper stepped up to complete his hat-trick to earn a point for the home side.
FPC will feel hard done by not to have gone home with all three points, but there is an air of optimism and enthusiasm around the club at the moment which will hopefully be carried on to next weeks encounter with Erin Hibs and, indeed, the rest of the season.
The new manager was quoted after the match as saying “I’m disappointed with the result given the nature of the goals we conceded and that we threw away a two-goal lead, but I thought the effort from the players was exceptional and the performance was truly encouraging. In time, I’m sure we’ll be able to build a serious challenge for honours, and it’s a challenge I look forward to embracing.”
Roll on Edinburgh…