After 4 years passed, I'm sure most of the T.Lawrie legends would have never thought they would pull on the orange jersey again. But last night, the cup winning team of 2006 (plus some extra bodies) reunited for one of their own. Sadly during the summer Hugh passed away after a battle with cancer. A friendly game was quickly arranged to raise money to send to his wife. Woolgar Hunter happily agreed to play on a warm sunny night at Hamilton Palace sports grounds.
McCallum stuck with his tried and tested 4-4-2 formation which served him so well in his latter years where he took the team to 3 cup finals and second in the league. Euan took his place between the sticks and gave a faultless Hugh performance. Spilling shots, getting lobbed but redeeming himself with 2 penalty saves. It should be noted that Euan is a great 5-aside keeper but has never played 11's. None the less is was brave of him step up and help out and in the end he enjoyed himself like everybody else.
The back four had a familiar look about it with McCallum, Stewart, Mcvey and Gallagher. Kelly bossed the midfield with his side kick Allen taking over the Bell role of anchorman (Bell was out due to breaking a finger nail) . Chalmers could only make the bench after knee problems.
Woolgar started the game the better and looked the team who has been playing together for weeks, Lawries started slowly and were sitting deep, probably a sign of lack of fitness and game time. Sam in particular was playing like Bambi and was struggling to stay on his feet, while Matt was trying his best to get an assist by gifting a short back pass but Gal was on his toes and managed to clear. In true Lawries fashion though, they defended well, sucked the opposition team in and hit on the break. Allan Sliman, the man left on the bench on so many occasions previously, scored his first goal in years and should be noted had a generally good game wherever he played. New man Scott Allen added a second soon after before Kelly got in on the act and dedicating his goal to Shug who was no doubt looking down having a good laugh at it all. Scott got himself a second just before the break with the goal of the game, beating several men and placing the ball in the bottom corner like he does every Wednesday at sevens.
There couldn't have been much for McCallum to say at half time except maybe explain the rules to some who might have forgotten not to pick the ball up from a throw in or wait till the ball leaves the penalty box before touching it from a goal kick.
McCallum made way at the start of the second half for his 15mins off and in true Lawrie fashion the arse fell out of it. Sliman was posted missing at right back for Woolgar's first. Nobody followed in apart from the Woolgar striker when Euan spilled a long range drive making it 4-2, and then the moment of the match. Who knows how many times Shug got lobbed during his career? and it became a bit of the joke. From miles out, and I'm not even sure if it was a shot or a clearance but Euan watched it all the way over his head and nestle in the back of the net. You could just sense that everybody was thinking the same thing. Poor Euan must have felt terrible but nobody else was blaming him, in fact I'm sure we all wanted it to happen to bring back memories past.
Things were looking pretty shaky for Lawries at this point. 4-0 ahead and pinned back to 4-3. We had all seen the film before. Something was needed and fast. McCallum brought himself back on to right back and that seemed to plug the leaky defence. Not only that but Kelly managed to get his second of the game after plenty of wasteful attacks which could have increase the score. Captain Sam left with 15 mins to go after putting in a commanding second half performance. It should also be noted that Lamby put in a great shift in a couple of positions.
As pre arranged, a penalty shoot out for a laugh was organised and as noted earlier in this report, Euan saved well from the first kick before catching a cheeky lob for the fourth. Gal and McCallum scored for Lawries and a quite exquisite bit of skill from Chalmers found the net also. Kelly was less fortunate and kept up his terrible record of missing penalties when he stuck the post.
All in all it was a fun night to get the team back together, pity it was not in better circumstances. A collection was had, and £180 was raised with Woolgar Hunter very kindly giving in £60 which is much appreciated.
