Ground 36: Braidwood Motor Company Stadium

Spring sunshine at Almondvale

Game: Livingston 0 v 0 Hamilton Academical

Date: Tuesday 16^th April

Competition: Scottish Football League Division 1

Attendance: 787

Admission: £17

Programme: £2

Highlights: http://www.livingstonfc.co.uk/livitv/hamilton160413/livitv.php

All things considered, my visit to Livingston didn’t quite work out as I’d planned. The game was first scheduled to take place on the last Saturday of December, but was postponed. And then postponed again. And again. So I was getting to the Braidwood Motor Company Stadium (or Almondvale) on the fourth attempt. The original game was scheduled to be Livi’s Football for a Fiver match, but due to postponements, Saturday’s clash between the two teams was designated as the £5 gate match. Great for fans that attended Saturday’s match, not so great for my wallet!

Compounding my misery was the fact I’d managed to forget my camera when leaving the house in the morning, so apologies for the quality of photos as they were taken with my phone camera.

It was a very windy day in Edinburgh when I set off from work to Waverley to catch my train out to West Lothian. Due to unfortunate timing, this was the second time Livingston would be facing Hamilton at home in the space of four days. Sometimes, the arguments for league reconstruction write themselves…It was little wonder that only 787 fans turned out for the fixture – less than half of Saturday’s attendance.

Livingston have a complicated history. Formed in 1943 as a works team, Ferranti Thistle – the club was admitted to the Scottish Football League in 1974 and became Meadowbank Thistle, playing at Edinburgh’s Meadowbank Stadium. Following financial difficulties in the early 90s, the club relocated to the West Lothian new town of Livingston in 1995 and changed their name once more.

Livi play at Almondvale Stadium. The ground opened in 1995 as a joint venture between Meadowbank and the Livingston Development Corporation. When I first started attending Livingston games in their inaugural season, Almondvale was just two stands, facing each other. As Livingston started to march their way up the leagues, the ground had to be expanded to meet Scottish Premier League standards with 10,122 seats. Livingston stayed in the SPL for five seasons which included a third placed finish and a League Cup win (against Hibs. I’ll make no further comment).

Livingston were then plunged into financial difficulty, which saw them placed into the 3^rd Division from the 2009-10 season. Two consecutive championships followed and this is their second season back in SFL1.

The legacy of the SPL will be that many clubs are now playing in grounds that are too big for them, and sadly for Livingston, there were a lot of empty seats on show at the game, with all supporters housed in the main stand. After paying for my double-header programme I took my seat to the left of the away dugout with great sightlines and plenty of legroom. I arrived just before the teams emerged onto the field and I was disappointed to learn that Stefan Scougall, Livingston’s great young prospect would not be featuring after injuring himself in the warm-up. He was replaced by Ross Docherty, wearing the no.12 jersey.

Hamilton took to the pitch wearing their change kit of black and blue vertical stripes. Inter Milan-esque while Livi wore their yellow shirts with black shorts.

Having won Saturday’s game 3-0 I was expecting a reaction from Livingston, and they started the game brightly. The referee was letting a lot go and he didn’t see a handball from Stevie May which led to a spectacular overhead kick from Gary Fisher which stand-in goalkeeper Darren Jamieson managed to tip onto the bar.

There were two flashpoints in the game, which ultimately decided the momentum for the game. In the 26^th minute, Accies right back Ziggy Gordon put in a reckless challenge on Livi defender Garcia Tena, which he received a yellow card for. From the subsequent free-kick, a loose ball saw Ross Docherty make a poor retaliation challenge on Gordon. Referee Steven McLean wasted no time at all in producing a red card which I felt at the time was harsh. It was more premeditated than Gordon’s tackle, but nowhere near as reckless. You can judge for yourself in the highlights from 1 minute in.

Hamilton almost took the lead from the resulting corner when keeper Jamieson once again had to leap to tip the ball over the bar.

What was dispiriting to hear afterwards was every time Gordon was on the ball there were shouts from the crowd of “nail him” or “go right through him”. Gordon, who I’ve seen already this season, is by no means a dirty player – he just got his timing wrong on his challenge on Garcia Tena. This is not a tendency that is unique to Livingston fans of course, but it got me wondering – when did football fans becoming so cruel and unforgiving? Or was it always the case?

The red card also had an impact on Livingston’s gameplan. Instead of the neat passing there was a tendency to knock the ball long to Danny Mullen up front. The tactic didn’t work too well as the Accies’ centre halves had about half a foot each on Mullen.

Livi did start the second half better than they ended the first and I was impressed with how hard the 10 men were working for each other and how adept they were at filling in for each other if one of their team mates went to press the ball.

The majority of the second half was what could be described as towsy, with not a great deal of quality but plenty of endeavour. There were a few half-chances and Hamilton probably looked the more likely to score with Stevie May always looking dangerous, but sadly neither side could break the deadlock.

Another enjoyable evening’s entertainment (less so the trudge up the hill to the train station afterwards) but it was a game that didn’t really kick-on from the sending off in the first half which was a shame. It was also a shame to see Almondvale with a great number of empty seats. It would be fantastic to see West Lothian really embrace their club and hopefully initiatives such as Football for a Fiver will see that happen.