McCrorie 75
Match Information
Attendance: 15,000
Referee: D Calder (Rutherglen)
Matchday: Saturday
Match Trivia
Before the game between Hamilton and Rangers there was a very heavy shower. I went out to get a ‘close-up’ of the Academicals’ pitch. Tommy Muirhead was there, with Johnny Steele and Tommy Craig, and one or two other well-know players. There were pools everywhere. “You might have a comedy stunt here,” said Muirhead. And indeed, it looked like it; for only super-players could be expected to give anything like effective football in such conditions. When I tell you that Hamilton Academicals deserved to win, against an Ibrox team that had only Cunningham absent, you will appreciate I have no doubts the spirit that inspired the Hamilton lads. Rangers played the wrong game. Cairns doubtless with the intentions of drawing the defence and giving his colleagues a chance, held the ball – but held it too long. Chalmers was guilty of adopting similar tactics. Indeed, the young Bellshill native could be heard shouting for the ball time after time when he should have allowed the man in possession to swing it to Morton or Archibald. The Hamilton supports were not so slavish in their attention to the inside mem – who necessarily operated on the muddy areas. For them the swinging game! And though neither Dr Bell nor Moffat approached even usefulness in the work they put on the ball, the tactics adopted by their halfs or inside men kept the Rangers’ defence on the stretch most of the time. Many exciting incidents kept us on tip-toe. It is impossible to mentions all the thrilling raids, the narrow escapes, the plucky, desperate efforts of men whom the sticky ground and driving rain had reduced almost to impotency. Nor is it possible to chronicle all the mistakes of a referee who was too cumbersome to cover the ground in quick time. He made errors that affected both sides, and although he failed to give a penalty when Archibald was brought down in the penalty area, few who were not rabid Rangers would blame him. He probably thought, as many did, that Sandy had prodded the ball over the bye-line before he was brought to earth. Rangers had very hard luck in having the energetic Muirhead and the astute Meiklejohn injured in movements which could quite as easily have ended in injuries to the opposing players. But, despite their ill-fortune, I assert that Rangers were not the better side, and therefore did not deserve to win. The players whose play lingers in one’s mind are Somerville, Hamilton’s goalkeeper; McCormack, Hunt and Thomson, sterling defenders. McCrorie, the goalscorer; Brown, the nippy centre; and Tom Miller, a veteran, but a darned useful man – these on the Academicals’ side. On the Rangers’ side Meiklejohn, Dixon and Henderson. No other player was up to the expected standard. Now to the run of play. Some time before the interval Rangers were at their best. We saw real Ibrox football then. Sommerville alone stood between the Rangers’ raiders and the back of the net. He stood staunchly, and probably he has never given a finer display in his life. McCrorie’s goal should have been a thing of beauty, but its artistry was spoiled by Dixon. The ex-Dundee player drove a glorious shot goalwards. The ball seemed sailing into the net when Arthur stepped into its path. Arthur was sore for many minutes afterwards. The ball struck him on a tender part of the anatomy and went sailing past Robb well out of its original path. In the closing stages, after the players had weather the rain-and-sleet storm, Hamilton preferred to clear the ball at any cost, and Rangers went out desperately but unsuccessfully for the equaliser. It was a glorious victory.
