Dundee Utd 1
Floriana 0
Cup Winners' Cup (1st Round 2nd Leg)

Match Report

The good news was heavily outweighed by the bad after United fans had to endure ninety minutes of United pressure with only one goal to show for their efforts. First to the positive aspects - we won and Allan Preston, making his European debut, had an excellent game as was one of the few to enhance his reputation. Overall, however, this was a lacklustre display and we made extremely heavy weather of breaking down a no more than competent Maltese defence. The early stages saw Allan Preston heavily involved as he swung over a series of probing crosses. However, the immaculate handling of David Cluett, the Maltese international goalkeeper, cut out most of the danger. The tenth minute brought a rare threat on Billy Thomson's goal, when a free kick for a foul on Aquilina went narrowly over. Nine minutes later Englishman Michael Greeno almost caused embarrassment when he just failed to get a touch to a dangerous cross, but that was the last we saw of the Maltese in an attacking
sense. A looping header by John Clark; a penalty claim when Ian McPhee was bundled off the ball; a Billy McKinlay shot straight at Cluett; a Paul Hegarty header; and a powerful Ian Redford header were the sum total of our first half efforts.

Play continued to flow towards Cluett in the Floriana goal as we stepped up our efforts to breakdown their defence, but their big 'keeper was on the spot to deal with a shot from Maurice Malpas, and two headers from Paul Hegarty without too much effort. Cluett, however, had to look lively to block an Ian McPhee. The Floriana goal had an amazing let off in the 65th minute when a clearance rebounded off Kevin Gallacher and went agonisingly past the far post. Finally the breakthrough came in the 60th minute. Kevin Gallacher turned out on the corner of the box and fired in a cross, which Raphael Meade headed into the top right hand corner of the net. During the last twenty minutes we created a series of chances all of which went abegging, with the only consolation of the night being our progression to the second round.