Match ended 0-0
Match Information
Attendance: 7,000
Referee: W McCulloch (Glasgow)
Matchday: Saturday
Match Trivia
Hamlet without the prince is one of those hackneyed phrases which discloses poverty in a writers imagination, but I feel justified in using it so that everyone will gather at a glance what McPhails absence meant to Rangers at Arbroath yesterday. But for the fair hair and judicious feet of George Brown, and the goalkeeping of Jerry Dawson, you wouldnt have recognised Rangers even in the familiar jerseys. And it was not a case of Arbroath bringing Rangers down to their own level. Such thoughts must be dismissed from the mind immediately. Arbroath never came any of the he-man stuff, and all over, it was a clean, sporting game. It was interesting enough to watch, and could not have been keener, but the quality of the football had best be forgotten. Arbroath have not the pretensions of Rangers, being content to save their faces as First Leaguers, but Rangers aspire to championship class. Never on your life, on this display. With a little more experience on the left wing, Arbroath would have emphasised this fact. Dawson had twice the work of Cumming, and one man was mainly responsible Adam, the Arbroath inside right. But for an occasional bit of luck in Dawsons favour, Adam might easily have been the hero of the game, and the centre of a sensation. He slung his shots from everywhere and was only baulked by the uncanny anticipation of Dawson. Rangers hopes of a new right wing in Souter and Fiddes flopped out of existence. Souter certainly did not justify himself, and no more need be said. The team canker also spread out to Kinnear, who will be favoured in getting further preference to Turnbull. If Venters was an orphan in this queer Rangers attack, Smith was a waif. The big centre, scrupulously clean, was the only forcing factor Rangers had, and he fell a victim to his own zeal fifteen minutes from the finish. In screwing in a cross shot, an outstanding feature of his play, he evidently twisted himself and was useless for the rest of the game. Souter went centre, and Smith made a brief return to outside right. Simpson, like McPhail, was badly missed in Rangers schemes. His absence makes it obvious that Cheyne has still to be played in. Drysdale did manfully, but Brown had to be too much of a roving commissioner, improvisations which were nearly fatal here, and would certainly be so against first-class opposition. In the absence of goals and lack of personality in the teams, the incidence of the play is of little account. Of thrills there were few, if the truth must be told. The only two hectic periods were first the bombardment of Arbroaths goal shortly before half-time. Souter was a shade unlucky when he did not get his head properly to the ball with the goal at his mercy, and Cumming had a jammy finger-tip save from Smith. Rangers wave of depression came shortly after half-time, when Arbroath wind and sun behind them, were in storming mood, and Dawson reached literally speaking heights of glory in the Ibrox goal. Thrice in quick succession Jerry sought the emergency of fisting high travelling and dangerous flag-kicks for further corners. The only life in the game was hereabouts, when Gray spooned the ball towards an empty goal, and wrung his hands as the sphere travelled slowly over the bar. Arbroath sometimes toyed with defeat in their eagerness for victory, by leaving their defensive lines too open. On one particular occasion in the second half Cumming made the save of the game from Souter, whose cross might have been meat for any of the other Rangers forwards. The result should give every encouragement to Arbroath. There was no fluke at all, no special occasion effort in their holding Rangers and if they can strike this as their usual game they may earn no bouquets, but assuredly they will keep their end up. To distinguish among the players would not only be invidious, but impossible
