Vale 4 Cumbernauld Colts 4

Well our survival in the Lowland League is now in the hands of Cowdenbeath who must beat Cove Rangers for us to stay up.
Although tonight’s game was very entertaining Vale will regret some lapses in defending that allowed the Colts to come back from 3-0 and 4-1 down to equalise in the last minute.
It was a tall order with both Blaikie and Scott-Mercer returning to the side after missing a fair part of the season with injuries, and eventually both had to be replaced through injuries as well as McBride.
The game had started with Vale pressing and they were reward in 5 min when Allan strode through the Colts defence to make it 1-0.
Vale increased there lead in the 21 mins when after some slack defending on the bye line the ball broke to Finnie who knocked it home.
In 41 mins a break on the left allowed Stewart to advance into the Colts box and put the ball beyond the keeper for a 3-0 lead.
On the stroke of half time a corner was missed by the Vale defence and Brown bent low to head past Gilpin.
HT 3-1

In 50 mins after a melee in the box from a corner McBride shot home to give Vale a 4-1 lead.
To fair to Colts from then on they started to create chances especially with Brown who is an excellent player and he was rewarded in 55 mins when he reduced the Vale lead.
From then on it was a backs to the wall for Vale as the fast Colt forwards were starting to give the Vale backline a hard time.
Colts reduced the lead further in 75 mins when Wallace scored.
As the game entered the dying minutes and Vale trying to see out time Colts broke up the park and Brown slotted home for his hat trick.
FT 4-4
Match Sponsor Brian Ellis man of the match was Ross Gilpin, who had some excellent saves during the game.
A hard result to take but the lack of match fitness for our returning players and some slack play in our own half led to our downfall.
Again the players put in a good shift and cannot be faulted for effort.