In a match which bordered on farce at certain junctures, Pirates well and truly laid their Scottish Cup bogey with a 13-1 annihilation of the hosts, their first win in the competition for 9 years.

 

The visitors were on the front foot from the first whistle but in spite of having all the pressure it took them until the 7th minute to open the scoring as Riddell fired home for the opener. Pirates continued to beat a path to the home goal, with Robertson going close, and after 12 minutes the lead was doubled through skipper McCamley, then a slapshot from Guy and an effort by Miller took the score to four before 15 minutes were on the clock, when McCamley saw his shot come back off a post, but the next goal wasn’t long in coming, Crawford netting with 3 minutes left in the period to take the score to 5-0 by the first interval.

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The flow of play towards the hosts’ goal continued unabated in the middle period, Miller finishing off a move with Thorp and Johnston to make it six by the 23rd minute. Both Johnston and Thorp skated the length of the ice and had a chance to score in the minutes which followed, in both instances being denied at the last second, but McCamley did break from mid ice to score with ease after 26 minutes for seven. At the midway point a Quinn shot rebounded from the upright, and while the Wild changed their goalie at the midway point it made no difference as McCamley completed his hat trick within two minutes. A high stick to Wilson went unpunished, and with team mate Orr carrying out his own form of retribution the latter was thrown out for being third man in during the following fracas, but in spite of being at a numerical disadvantage Pirates scored again, shorthanded, within a minute, as Thorp netted. Pirates were again shorthanded as the period drew to close, but they still had time to hit the double figure mark as Chris Turley scored from the blue line to make it 10-0 by the buzzer.

 

The home net was bulging with barely a minute gone of the restart as Crawford scored his second of the night, but with less than 3 minutes played Cowan, playing with a facial injury sustained the previous weekend, saw red as he took another illegal high blow and, in the absence of any call from the officials, took his own action by hauling his opponent to the ground, the resultant fracas meaning that a second Pirate was ejected from the game. To compound the chaos at this point, the timekeeper appeared to lose track of the time and a full 15 minutes went by before play was able to resume. Pirates remained in complete control, however, and were in fact playing off another penalty when Wilson stepped forward and fired home to make it the round dozen after 47 minutes. However, once again, a high challenge was not called, the player concerned once again meted out his own form of penalty, and this time Pirates’ Miller made his way to the dressing room. Not for the first time, Pirates were playing off another penalty as they were called for having Too Many Men, and this time the hosts finally got themselves on the scoreboard, almost by surprise, with one of only seven shots recorded on Langford during the evening. There was still time, however, for Johnston to make it unlucky for North Ayr with his side’s thirteenth goal of the night, and while a Robertson shot came back off the bar with only minutes left, the match ended, almost three hours after it had started.

 

Pirates now face Kirkcaldy Kestrels in the next round.

Author

Founder of Paisley.org.uk in 1998 and constantly strives to change peoples attitudes to the town, Brian is a self described Paisley Digital Champion who promotes Paisley via any means necessary. You can also follow me on X