English 30
Nicol 31
T Craig
Fleming
Match Information
Attendance: 7,000
Referee: W.G. Holborn (Glasgow)
Matchday: Saturday
Match Trivia
For half of the ninety minutes Leith fought magnificently. For the rest of the time their football was made to look elementary before an almost perfect roughly, summarises the game at the Marine Gardens. What was wrong from the Leith point of view was that the players took so much out of themselves in the early stages that they were unable to last the pace. Rangers calculated things to were level at 1-1. Then two brilliant pieces of opportunism on the part of English, which incidentally gave his hat-trick, virtually settled the issue. Twice the ball was slipped upfield, the first time with a long punt from McAulay, the second with a neat pass from McPhail. Both times English was on the ball like lightning, whipping it past Todd. Leith keyed up for the big occasion, bustled Rangers off their game. In fact, for the first half-hour the balance was definitely in their favour, but their finishing was weak, so much so that hardly once had Hamilton a direct shot to deal with. Then fireworks, two goals right on top of each other. The opening one fell to Rangers. Forrest failed to gather the ball, and before he could recover, English had possession, and Todd had no chance. No sooner was the ball centred than Leith swooped down on Hamilton, and Nicol added the finishing touch. All the glory Leith had won disappeared in the second half. Rangers for the most part toyed with them, though the Marine Gardens men put up some semblance of a fight after Nicol got his second goal. But they had shot their bolt, and Rangers last two goals, by Craig and Fleming, were got by quiet studied play. Even taking their brilliant second half into account, however, Rangers were not nearly so good as they cane be. Hamilton, though not very busy, had to be continually on the watch for slips. Gray and McAulay never rose above a very mediocre standard, but the half-backs managed to redeem a poor start. Craig was probably the best of the three. Meiklejohn hardly made himself noticed, and Simpson blundered more than once. It was English who exposed all the gaps in the Leith defence. For speed he easily had the measure of the backs, and his ball control was something to wonder at. McPhail and Marshall came next, and Smith and Fleming did lots of good work in a quieter way. Todd did well in the Leith goal, but of the other Leith players, only Bruce, Reid, McNeill and Johnston enhanced their reputations
