WHILE sections of Gayfield Park’s past were torn down off the pitch during the week, Arbroath’s players continued to build their own history on it. After this nervy triumph over a stubborn - if, in all likelihood, doomed - Queen of the South, a first top flight adventure since the early 1970s is so tantalisingly close, Dick Campbell can practically reach into the North Sea wind and touch it.
It’s hard to believe the same Dick Campbell, a mullet-toting Cowdenbeath player of little note in those sepia-tinted days, is now just two wins away from achieving the unthinkable but there he was when Jack Hamilton rifled in Arbroath’s fourth of the day, arms aloft and showing the turn of pace most assumed had gone with the hairstyle.
They’d done it the hard way, fighting back from Ally Roy’s early opener and the obvious nerves, before proving too strong for the young visitors and are now firmly back in the driving seat, with a do or die trip to Rugby Park to come next week.
"All I was looking for was to make the game alive for Friday and it certainly is now,” said Campbell. “What a game that's going to be.
"I'm looking forward to it, I really am. I have nothing to lose whatsoever, neither have my players or my club.”
Had the powers that be dreamt up an end of season scenario, they could not have pictured one more perfect than this. Wily old Dick Campbell against A Shot at Glory’s Derek McInnes. The full-time favourites against the underdog part-timers. The Empire against the Rebellion.
Whatever happens, it’s the chance the Red Lichties have more than earned. They’ve beaten Killie twice this season, including once in Ayrshire, and refused to wilt, despite McInnes’ men’s recent resurgence.
It’s success built on solidity at the back - they have the league’s lowest xG against - but with flair that defies expectations. They’ve owed much of that to Livingston. In the first half of the season, it was Joel Nouble - the enigmatic, joyful winger - who sparkled. Since then it’s been Jack Hamilton, his now ten goals keeping them in the hunt and he was the focal point of again, easily too strong for four Queen of the South defenders when he turned the game on its head midway through the first-half and earning his second of the day with a strike fit for the Premiership.
Campbell’s boys might have felt like the only show in town, and it’s easy to forget the Doonhammers had their own need for the points, but it was Queen of the South who started the brighter of the two and soon opened the scoring.
Buoyed by an impressive away support and sniffing the obvious Arbroath nerves, they took full advantage. A series of misplaced passes were taking the home side nowhere fast when a warning was shot across the bow. First it was Ally Roy, ghosting onto Innes Cameron’s clever pass and firing wide, then it was Calvin McGrory doing similar with a dipping volley.
Arbroath failed to heed those warnings and were behind after less than ten minutes. There was something admirably simple about the goal. Joshua Debayo sprinted down the left, floated in a cross, and there was Roy, darting ahead of his marker to nod beyond Derek Gaston and send Gayfield into a stunned silence.
This wasn’t in the script, but maybe it should have been. Cameron, the Kilmarnock loanee, had fire in his belly and, with Arbroath caught in a skittish slumber, broke the offside trap to nearly make it two, only for his weak shot to go straight into Gaston’s arms.
That was the wake-up call Arbroath needed. Finally they strung one, two, three passes together to pull at the Doonhamer’s threads and when Michael McKenna slipped the ball into a Colin Hamilton-shaped hole, there was only going to be one outcome. His shot roared into Josh Rae’s top corner.
Gayfield would soon be roaring again, but not before Nicky Low, whose tenacity and composure had almost single handedly dragged Arbroath into the game, was denied by Rae. The little midfielder responded by geeing up the crowd and moments later he was there to orchestrate the celebrations when Jack Hamilton’s deflected effort squeezed into the back of the net to turn the game on its head.
That seemed to knock the stuffing out of Queen of the South and two early second-half goals may have just about done for their lingering survival hopes. First, Cameron - who else? - headed Low's corner beyond his own goalkeeper, before Jack Hamilton twisted away from Willie Gibson and arrowed the ball unstoppably home.
There was even still time for James Craigen to step off the bench and score a fifth, the icing well and truly put on the cake. If you have plans for Friday night, cancel them.
“At times I feel we are just too nice,” said Queen of the South’s interim player/manager Gibson. “Naive. That’s probably the best word to use.”
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