Half past one at the Falkirk Stadium and a PA announcement like the voice of God Himself booms around the empty ground, scaring away some birds and startling a handful of half-awake hacks: “THE STADIUM IS NOW IN EVENT MODE”.
Apparently an event was about to take place. Pity nobody told the players. After an hour and a half of near relentless tedium, it seemed somebody in the control room had pressed the non-event mode button by accident.
“I thought it was absolute murder and I apologise for the people who had to pay to watch it,” said Eddie May, the Falkirk manager, afterwards. “But we’re off the bottom, playing against a team that don’t really let you play . . . but we had to go and influence the game.”
It is the third goalless draw in a row in the league for Falkirk. The defence is okay – and it is surely no coincidence that Darren Barr has returned to centre-back from right-back in recent weeks – but the attack is non-existent and will surely cost May’s team this season.
“There are goals in this team,” he insisted, before admitting, “we never created a decent chance.” The absence of the injured Scott Arfield has removed the main creative outlet while Carl Finnigan and Kjartan Finnbogason seem to lack the pace, power or touch to threaten.
“Have a shot at goal Falkirk,” came a lonely plea. Half an hour had passed without one on target. Finnigan had scuffed a tame effort wide and Burton O’Brien had lofted a free-kick over the bar, but that was it.
Kilmarnock were almost as toothless, though their squad was weakened by injuries – Jim Jefferies felt unable to make any substitutions because his substitutes were half-fit. They were content to battle and hustle in the hope that Kevin Kyle or Conor Sammon could get on the end of a cross and perhaps steal a win, and eventually left satisfied with their first point away from home this season.
The onus was on Falkirk to create chances and early on they made inroads on their left wing, but Tam Scobbie consistently sent his crosses nowhere near Finnigan or Finnbogason. Danny Invincibile, the Kilmarnock right midfielder, finally started to pay attention to Scobbie’s runs and that avenue was closed to Falkirk.
Invincibile looked like having the dubious distinction of being the only player to get a shot on target in the first half – his right-foot cross-shot from 20 yards was comfortably saved by Robert Olejnik – until Danijel Marceta conceded a free-kick on the edge of the area five minutes from time.
Mehdi Taouil, whose touch so far exceeded that of the other 21 players it was embarrassing, curled the ball to Olejnik’s top-right corner; it couldn’t have been better placed, but it could have been harder struck, Olejnik just getting a hand to it.
The opening minutes of the second half contained more action than the whole of the first, as Marceta first came close with a right-foot curler from the left edge of the penalty area before Falkirk spent a few minutes passing the ball around Kilmarnock’s 18-yard box, without actually creating anything.
Barr finally got an effort on target with the clock showing 52 minutes elapsed, but Kyle was well placed to nod away his header from an O’Brien corner. Ten minutes of comparatively diverting football having passed, it was as if the teams remembered where they were and reverted back to their anaemic first-half type, the only entertainment for the neutral being trying to keep track of the number of times O’Brien gave the ball away.
“I felt only one team was going to score,” said Kilmarnock manager Jim Jefferies, showing more optimism than most present. His team looked vaguely interested in scoring, Taouil putting in a few dangerous crosses from the left, but didn’t have a clear-cut chance until five minutes from time, when a free-kick from deep in their own half was launched to Kyle, whose header from six yards was saved well by Olejnik. “That’s what I get paid to do,” said the big Austrian. “It was just another day in the office.”
Jefferies added: “We put a lot more pressure on in the second half and their goalie’s had more to do. He’s made the save at the end. We felt we put a lot of good balls in the box but nothing fell for us and to be fair Falkirk defended them quite well.”
