Robin Bairner Column – Part 12

Date – 2^nd February 1999
Venue – Forthbank Stadium
Competition – Scottish Cup Third round
Result – Stirling Albion 2-1 Hibernian
Kick Off – 7.45pm

It took a late Hibs equaliser at Easter Road to earn them a trip to Forthbank and must have felt fairly confident of having broken both Stirling’s confidence and resistance. The game followed much the same pattern as the one in Edinburgh with Hibs having much of the early play and causing problems through Stevie Crawford and Russell Latapy. But it was Stirling who scored first, against the run of play.

Player/Manager John Philliben took a quick free kick long into the Hibs half to which David McCallum reacted quickest to and got the bottom of his foot to the ball to guide it past onrushing Hibs keeper, Ollie Gottskalksson. It was a great piece of opportunism and rewarded Stirling’s battling efforts.

However, Hibs were not knocked out of stride by this and Binos had goalkeeper Gary Gow to thank as he pulled of a number of good saves to ensure the Albion’s advantage, notably turning away a dangerous looking cross-cum-shot and producing a fantastic save from a Crawford header. But even Gow couldn’t keep out Latapy’s curling drive from eighteen yards that levelled the game and seemed set to be the platform from which Hibs went on and won the game. The Albion defence had a real ‘backs to the wall’ job to do before half time just to go in equal with their more illustrious opponents.

With the first half successfully negotiated every ounce of strength had to be summoned up for the second half. Once more Hibs had most of the possession and a large share of the territorial advantage but Stirling held firm and stopped the flow of chances that was created in the first half. And once more Stirling went ahead.

Chris Jackson burst forward from midfield onto a ball which Alex Bone had dummied, took one touch and lashed the ball into the top of the net from twenty yards to send his former team a goal down once again.

This time Stirling held resolute in defence. Hibs threw everything forward in search of a winner but, with Gow and the centre of defence immense, there was no way through.

The BBC Scotland TV cameras had picked the game as the best of the replays and so was shown as extended highlights that night. I wonder how many Binos still have the video.