B McPhail 2
Calderwood og
Match Information
Attendance: 30,000
Referee: W.G. Holborn (Glasgow)
Matchday: Saturday
Match Trivia
Rangers won deservedly, and what I consider more important, by sound and clever method. In comparison, Thistle were a disjointed and spasmodic lot, displaying patched of cleverness, but at no time sustained effort. Another pleasing feature of the game, and this was thoroughly appreciated by an attendance approaching 30,000, was the almost entire absence of free kicks for shady play; indeed, I dont think I saw a single infringement which could be placed in that category. The Light blues front line moved for a considerable part of the game with that smoothness of movement which one has been looking for since the season opened, but which so far, I have not been fortunate enough to see. The one blot on an otherwise interesting game was the bad shooting of both sides Rangers, were the greater sinners in this respect, but probably Thistle are less liable to criticism, because of the few opportunities they had. Still Rangers shot well enough to score two goals I cannot credit them with that unfortunate mistake of Calderwoods, as the ball was going wide when he altered its direction and by many direct efforts brought out some splendid saving by Jackson in the thistle goal. He it was of all the Dark Blue players who came out of the game without a single blemish in his play he rather added to his already fine reputation. Two saves in particular from English and Marshall elicited hearty appreciation. Only during the last ten minutes of the first half and for a short spell midway through the second did the home lot look dangerous, but had they been able to break through more often I think the score would have been different. Dawson on a couple of occasions was not over-impressive, and in the closing minutes indeed, was decidedly shaky. Had Wylie possesses more experience he ought to have got a couple of goals for his side, but I am not saddling him with the defeat, as he had a lean time of it, and got few decent passes. Thistle suffered a decided handicap through Elliot sustaining an injury to his leg, and they missed him badly from the middle line when he retired to outside-right soon after half-time. There was no more heady player on the field than Bob McPhail. The old Airdrie player was the brains of the attack and responsible for the oiling of the Ibrox machine. He opened out the play beautifully, and if his finishing had been on a par with the rest of his work, I could have set his display down as par excellence. But, oh, his shooting! It was really bad, excepting, of course, his opening and very valuable goal three minutes after the start. English pleased me greatly, and I admired his perseverance and pluck immensely. He is well endowed with bot these qualities. The home defence was kept on tenterhooks by the young centre-forward, and they did well to keep him out on many occasions. Marshall did a lot of clever things, and so long as he was content to be a cog in the machine, performed well, but when he displayed a fondness for the ball, he was all wrong. Fleming was very slack at times and did not put the same energy into his work as Nicholson, who had a good day. Brown and Meiklejohn were rare providers, and rarely put a foot wrong. Elliot was the only thistle player I could compare with them, although McLeod was a worker. Gray was the most successful of the four backs on view, although McAuley had a bright spell early in the second half, his kicking being particularly good. Calderwood was overworked latterly owing to Elliots injury but came out of the games with as much credit as Rae neither playing to form. Simpson and McAllister were content to stop and if the former was more prominent it was principally owing to the number of times the ball was sent where his height gave him an advantage over Wylie. McAllister was not so good as at the end of last season; perhaps he is not turned up yet. Ballantyne worked hard to emulate McPhail, but had not the same response, neither Grove nor Wylie striking it, and the wingmen were too much inclined to hold the ball. Three minutes after the start Meiklejohn drove through and English gave the home defence the driving to allow McPhail to score. Fifteen minutes later, in a mix-up, for which McAllisters indecision was responsible, English shot hard, but Calderwood diverted past Jackson. Eight minutes later Wylie picked up a straight pass to go on and score, but ten minutes after the interval Fleming made the points secure
