Dunfermline 3
Dundee Utd 1
League (SPL)

Match Report

United boss Alex Smith kept the same side for the third consecutive SPL match with youngsters Jamie McCunnie and Paul Gallacher retaining their places.

In the first minute play stopped when the Pars’ Michel Doesburg and Hugh Davidson clashed heads and required lengthy treatment before the game could resume. Doesburg took no further part in the game and was replaced by Lee Bullen. An excellent cross by Hamilton in the eighteenth minute evaded Ruitenbeek in the Dunfermline goal but couldn't find any United takers. In the twenty-second minute Miller robbed Ferguson and Griffin’s shot from long range cannoned off Skinner to Lilley but he was flagged for offside. A de Vos pass in thirty-one minutes was headed by Lilley to Miller who shimmied away from Skinner and tried to shoot but Skinner recovered.

Dunfermline won a corner in the forty-seventh minute which United cleared easily but a minute later the home side went ahead when Steve Hampshire turned in the box and drilled the ball past Gallacher. In the fifty-first minute McCunnie won a corner for United which fell to Miller. The ex- Watford man’s superb strike was adjudged to have been deflected for another corner and Griffin’s cross was headed home at the near post by Derek Lilley. At 1-1 the game opened up with both teams intent on winning and as a result the spectacle became more entertaining. In the eightieth minute Dunfermline went ahead for the second time when a Moss strike was saved by Gallacher but Pars new boy Marinus Dijkhuizen tapped in the rebound despite efforts by United’s goalie to stop the shot. Hamilton was replaced by Thompson in the eighty-second minute and two minutes later the game moved beyond United as Dunfermline got a third goal when a cross from the left was side-footed in by David Moss.