Anderson xx, <45
T Cairns >45
Match Information
Attendance: 14,000
Referee: J.M. Dickson (Glasgow)
Matchday: Saturday
Match Trivia
The big thing happened in football yesterday. The Rangers were beaten. The sensation was very real. The champions of the League expected to win at Ayr. Tradition counts after all! Somerset Park was the graveyard of the Scottish cup hopes of the Light Blue last season, and it was jubilee year at Ibrox, too! The Ibrox players assembled at St Enoch Station at noon as if they were off for a golfing picnic. The latest in golf bags made quite a respectable pile. And George Livingstone kept a watchful eye over all. There was a big muster of the Ibrox faithful. Long queues lined up to book accommodation in the special trains. They were the early birds. Players and officials talked of the golfing holiday they were going to have at Turnberry over the week-end. Between now and Tuesday, when they return to Glasgow, they will have digested the many stories of how Ayr succeeded where Celtic failed. The first news I got at St Enoch was the death of Bob Marshall, a famous Rangers half-back in the days of David Mitchell, Andrew McCreadie, Tom Hyslop and Alec Smith. Marshall was a Partick man, and a plumber to trade. “Here’s the hand of a tar,” was his favourite greeting. I saw Marshall captain a winning Scottish League team in Belfast when he was on his honeymoon. Somehow John Campbell’s intimation of the passing of an old Rangers favourite seemed to me at the moment to presage disaster for the Light Blues at Ayr. Such thoughts will intrude of one happens to be of Celtic descent and temperament. When I met Mr Tom Steen at Ayr, he was none too hopeful of an Ayr victory. He mentioned that Jack Smith, MacKenzie and John McLean were unable to play. A big handicap for Ayr. Bigger, in fact, than the non-appearance of Tom Muirhead and George Henderson on the Rangers side. The Ayr players were fired with the laudable ambition to lower the Rangers’ colours. No other club had done so all season. Besides, none had beaten Ayr on home soil. There was more confidence among the Ayr men than I found in the other camp. As the men trotted out, I fancied the Rangers forwards were strong enough to decide the issue. Every position in the line seemed to be filled by a more capable player. Compare Archibald, Cunningham, Hansen, Cairns and Morton on the one side with Kilpatrick, Ford, Cunningham, Anderson and McMinn of Ayr, and instinctively one’s judgment swayed towards the Rangers. The run of the game did not bear out the reckoning. The Rangers’ attack was faulty from the beginning. Hogg, McLeod and Murphy got among the feet of those dreaded Ibrox forwards at the start, and they kept on doing it on to the close. The one patchy bit of combination by the Rangers forwards occurred about the time a brake club, with blue banners flying, rolled up to the turnstiles five minutes from the interval. One can realise the shock those fellows got when they learned the favourites of Ibrox were a couple of goals to the bad, and they had not seen how the miracle happened. Only Celtic had scored twice against the Light Blues in an away game, and only three other clubs had managed to score once. I heard numerous allusions to the great New Year game of the Rangers at Parkhead in the train. When all seemed lost Archibald had pulled the game out of the fire with a wonderful goal. These was still hope at the interval at Somerset Park, when Ayr led by two goals. These goals brought into prominence a well-set-up young fellow from Kilwinning names Anderson, who had made an odd appearance in the League team. He is not a player of the MacKenzie type, but he filled that player’s shoes well, even if the process his wind gave out in the last twenty minutes. Anderson snapped up a fast cross close in after about twenty minutes, and his drive to the side of Robb gave the goalkeeper not the ghost of a chance. The shout of the home crowd could have been heard at Troon. The reverse staggered the Rangers. They bore down on Nisbet, whose knee had to be doctored with embrocation, but the next minute Ford and Kilpatrick were busy at the other end. Robb rushed out to get to the ball. He stopped the Ayr right wingers sure enough, but in the process got a kick, apparently to the ribs. The game was suspended while the Ibrox goalkeeper was put to rights. Play had been stopped dangerously near to the Rangers goal. The referee ordered the ball to be thrown down. I fancied several of the Rangers players imagined a free kick would be awarded against Ayr. They did not line up to defend with their usual alacrity. Ere the amazed crowd realised what had happened Anderson had whisked the ball into the net. Both goals were scored within four minutes. After the game this later incident evoked more discussion than the actual result. The Rangers officials, who were out in force, contended that a free kick should have been given against Ayr, instead of the ball having to be thrown down. I am certain nothing would have been heard about the incident had it not ended so tragically for Ibrox! “Ayr are playing good, practical football”, said Mr RF Harrison, of Kilmarnock, at half-time. “They are playing on to the Rangers to keep them from combination”. Some folks in the pavilion had been talking about the quality and standard of the game! A brighter outlook for Ibrox presaged the start of the second half. Cunningham, Meiklejohn and Dixon each shot wide to inspire the hope of transformation in the score. Archibald made the hope a certainty when he took a corner kick after five minutes, and Cairns popped on the long-expected goal! There the efficiency of the Light Blues ended. Ayr held on defending, and opened out often to show they were still capable of disputing every inch of the advantage they held. The struggle was desperate now and more robust. The duel between Tom Cairns and Hogg – hard contact and grim tackling – became mire frequent. Free kicks in profusion made no difference. Neither side yielded! About twenty minutes from time Cunningham was injured on the thigh and required a bandage. He exchanged places with Archibald, but their luck was out. A dying effort in the last few minutes almost saved the situation. Either Woodburn or McCloy saved a pinch under the bar, and a minute later Archibald shot over. The Rangers owed their defeat chiefly to the failure of Hensen. The Dane did many stupid things, and rarely brought of anything that was right. Sometimes he left the ball to rush a defender when there was no need to do so. He neither could pass the ball accurately or make anything of the openings he got from Cairns and Cunningham. Cairns proved a great captain and leader. Had there been another forward of his thrust and power I feel convinced the Rangers would never have been beaten. There was no wing play to speak of in the Rangers’ game, and the half-back play was only of average quality. Tom Muirhead was badly missed. Both he and Jock Nicholson were on the spot. Manderson and McCandless got rushed more than they are accustomed to. Bert was the better of two serviceable backs. I fancy the Celtic gruelling took a lot out of the Rangers. The side lacked its usual sprightliness, and Cunningham’s mishap ended their best chance of drawing the game. I congratulate Ayr on a brilliant feat. They played the right game to masters their opponents – hard kicking and close following up, and every risk taken. Woodburn defended courageously and kicked with ease and power. Sometimes hr took grave risks of losing a goal by passing back to Nisbet too close in. Almost everything he did came off, and between the back and Hogg, Alan Morton did not get much of a show. McCloy was a dashing, robust, left defender. Murphy was neat and clever in his passes and tackling. McLeod made a sorry hash of Hansen and served his team nobly. There was no outstanding forwards on either side, except Cairns. None approached his power, and few took a heavy body charge or gave one like this lion-hearted Ranger. The Ayr forwards were plucky and persevering, and in a sporting game they quite held their own in every section. For his two goals Anderson’s value to the side was immense. The winning goal was a simple affair, but it meant an upheaval of form that livens up the game. Tom Hyslop, the great Ibrox forward of the late ‘nineties’, was loud in his praise of Tom Cairns on the return journey. The narrow ground and the foolish play of Hansen, he declared to be the reason why Rangers lost.
