Football: No butts – Thistle go top of the table

TOLLCROSS THISTLE leap-frogged West Lothian to the summit of the Lothian and Edinburgh Amateur FA Edinburgh West Division by beating their rivals 2-0 in a game packed with niggle and incident at Saughton 3G.

Thistle further extended their lead at the top of the table to four points with a 1-0 win at Heriot-Watt on Monday night, but the foundations of their top-of-the-table position were laid in a sometimes-fraught encounter against their Bathgate-based adversaries.

Referee Stewart Lawrie was at the centre of a number of controversial decisions, including the sending-off of a dumbstruck Steven Moncur, the Tollcross striker who appeared to be the victim of an act of simulation by an opponent.

The sense of injustice that subsequently flowed through the Thistle ranks only served to spur them on and they added to their first-half goal to overcome a very physical West Lothian side.

The visitors seemd intent on riling and provoking their opponents but Tollcross displayed superiority in passing, technique and, tellingly, fitness en route to victory.

With the help of the pristine artificial surface for their home games this season, Tollcross have been able to cultivate a slick, quick passing game and are one of the more attractive sides to watch on Edinburgh's amateur scene.

The first flowing move of the game resembled 'pinball football', a fast, direct stream of play upfield via Thistle's left flank. Left-back Robbie Menzies started the move which culminated in Callum Roberts swinging his shot from the left-hand edge of the penalty area narrowly wide of the left-hand post.

West Lothian were wasteful of their two best opportunities in the game, which both arrived early on. Two free-kicks, both awarded in central positions within 25 yards of the Tollcross goal, did not require a moment of Thistle goalkeeper Gary Burgess' attention.

The first sign that referee Lawrie would experience a challenging afternoon came when West No.10 David Wilson swung a kick at Thistle midfielder Adam Robertson after Robertson had been hustling him in an attempt to gain possession.

Wilson's act was punished only with a yellow card, when the ref could easily have shown a red for such a blatant off-the-ball display of aggression. Moncur clever's forward play nearly created the game's first goal.

After his lob over goalkeeper Peter Flannigan as the two came together on the right-hand edge of the penalty area, the ball trickled across the face of goal but was still too far out of reach for the inrushing Lee Heinemeir.

Moncur himself was more clinical on 27 minutes and duly gave Thistle the lead.

Meeting a high cross from the left wing, the No.10 bulleted his header past a helpless Flannigan. Then came the game's biggest talking point.

There had been plenty of verbal taunting from both sides throughout the game but Moncur and West Lothian's Darren Bishop took it a step further, confronting each other eyeball-to-eyeball after what was presumably a particularly offensive comment.

What followed was comical, if not tragic for Moncur.

With seemingly no direct contact between the two – and Bishop reportedly indicated that this was the case as he trudged off the field when later red-carded himself – the West Lothian man took a dramatic tumble backwards and writhed on the turf.

Match official Mr Lawrie saw the result, but perhaps not the head-to-head incident itself, and sent off Moncur, who, seconds before, had been laughing at the comedy of the whole episode.

"You could tell he was play-acting by the way he fell," said Moncur.

Tollcross made their mark on the game purely through good football, and doubled their lead shortly after the hour-mark. Robertson's long ball towards the outer right-hand corner of the West Lothian penalty area sparked a race for possession between the visitors' goalkeeper Flannigan and home striker Lee Heinemeir.

The nippy "Heiny" won the race by some margin, extending a foot to meet the high, bouncing ball to lob it over the keeper and into the net.

Tollcross Thistle: Gary Burgess, Gary Fox, Robbie Menzies, Rees Allan, Adam Cormack, Adam Robertson, Sean Mossman, Callum Roberts, Lee Heinemeir, Steven Moncur, Robbie Simpson, John Nisbit, Ross Henderson, Glenn Waddle, Jamie Archibald, Michael Meechan.

West Lothian: Peter Flannigan, Jamie Little, Alexander Kerr, Stevie Reid, Gary Aitken, Darren Bishop, Nat Hutton, John Rodgers, Craig Little, David Wilson, Ryan Wilson, Greg Ronald, Keith Davidson, Graeme Martin, Mark McKenna, Stewart McIntyre.