With the wind still swirling around menacingly outside Fir Park, and the skies bleak and black, Stuart McCall summed up the effect of the conditions.
“Crap entertainment, crap game, decent point,” the Motherwell managed said. No other sentiment could have reflected the sense of exasperation that a game between two well-matched and capable sides was reduced to being the victim of such turbulent conditions.
In such an unforgiving tempest, the ball was little more than something to toy with, and the players reacted as though trying to banish it from sight rather than retain possession. The 0-0 scoreline seemed like an act of defiance in itself, given the circumstances.
“If it had been cancelled at one o’clock, I’d have been delighted,” added McCall. “If you get wind over so many miles an hour, it just makes it a lottery. It can’t have been great for the punters, it certainly wasn’t great for the players. The answer? It’s just the wind that spoils it, so maybe a windometer, and when the wind goes above a certain mile-an-hour gust, we go home to watch Soccer Saturday.”
There was remembrance and protest in the hour before kick-off, with the unveiling of a fans’ memorial to Phil O’Donnell – an artwork high on the side of the stand named after the late Motherwell and Celtic midfielder – then later, inside the stadium, banners being raised against “heavy-handed” treatment of supporters and the Scottish government’s proposed anti-sectarian bill. This sense of conflicting emotions could never be overcome even once the game kicked off.
Litter tumbled across the pitch, caught in the grasp of a gusting wind. Rain, too, drove down in sheets, and the game became an act of survival. How else could it be endured? Motherwell played two wingers – Chris Humphrey and Omar Daley – and a centre-forward, while Dundee United relied on two attackers either side of their lone striker; there was little room for finesse, though.
The first half belonged to United, the second half mostly to Motherwell, at least in an attacking sense; in both cases, the teams were assisted by the wind at that time. It shifted and jolted the ball so that the game was often erratic, and attempts to impose some order often fell victim to the conditions. Decent play arrived in brief, treasured moments.
Mostly, it was from the wide players, Gary MacKay-Steven in the first-half, and Humphrey, in even more fleeting instances, after the break. The Dundee United player, in particular, was so quick that a fear seemed to spread out from him as he ran at defenders, causing them to become stricken.
There was room for other glimpses of extravagance, and John Rankin attempted to score from a free kick inside his own half, the midfielder hoping the wind would carry the ball over the head of Darren Randolph, the Motherwell goalkeeper.
Players were slipping on the wet surface, and the watching Craig Levein must have been considering the trip as having little value. Both teams deployed three central midfielders, with Steven Jennings for Motherwell and Willo Flood for the visitors being tasked with breaking up play. They achieved this with relish, helped by the frantic nature of so much of the game, and the anxiety, that was a consequence of the weather conditions.
There was an effort that was disallowed, after Humphrey failed to keep the ball in play before delivering the cross that Gary Kenneth skewed off his own post, sending it to Michael Higdon for a tap-in. Then Shaun Hutchinson misjudged the flight of a long ball into the Motherwell penalty area, allowing it to fall to Jon Daly, but his shot failed to trouble Randolph.
Charged with the greater purpose after the interval, Motherwell threatened when Hutchinson’s header drew a save from Dusan Pernis, and later a Jamie Murphy effort stung the goalkeeper’s palms, but otherwise there were few other sources of promise. It was a trial of perseverance.
“We’re asking people to travel from their homes and pay good money, and we’re asking them to watch football in conditions like that,” said Peter Houston, the Dundee United manager. “Should we be discussing summer football?
“Years ago, I wasn’t an advocate of it, but the more I think about it, and look at the Irish league, maybe have a change in the season to play in the summer, and maybe people will see a better game than this one.”
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