Football: It's a walk-over for the leaders; CLYDE ..........4 RAITH............1.
Byline: Alan McMILLAN reportsHANDY Andy Gibson struck a double as Clyde kept a firm grip on top spot.
Raith made a fight of it for a long spell despite playing for just under an hour with 10 men following the sending off of Goran Stanic.
However, the home side stood firm and got there in the end with further goals by Stuart McCluskey and sub Pat Keogh.
Some supporters sing that they'll walk a million miles for one of their team's goals.
A group of Clyde followers walked around 11 miles from the club's old Shawfield home to raise cash for the league leaders and they went home quite chuffed to have seen four.
Both teams had to adjust their line-ups after pre-match setbacks.
Clyde withdrew Austin McCann after discovering he was suspended and that meant a quick promotion from the bench to the starting side for Kevin Fotheringham.
Raith's in-form striker Ramon Pereira injured himself in the warm-up and so Andy Dow came in.
The last-minute change didn't seem to upset the Fifers who took the lead in two minutes.
Paquito set up Sebastian Ferrero and he buried a left-foot shot into the corner of the net from 25 yards.
Raith played some attractive passing football in the early stages but shot themselves in the foot on 21 minutes when Salvador Capin lost possession to Ian Harty.
When the striker was crowded out in the box the ball fell kindly for Jimmy Gibson to thump home the equaliser.
That got the visitors back into the game but it wasn't to last as they pressed the self-destruct button again on the half-hour mark.
Stanic was booked for deliberate handball and was then shown a straight red card 60 seconds later for hauling back Harty as he headed for the penalty box.
That was the last real action of the first half and the Raith 10 held out fairly comfortably until the 77th minute when Clyde suddenly clicked up a gear.
Ross sent over a corner and McCluskey's header hit the underside of the bar and the keeper before crossing the line.
Two minutes later Clyde star Simon Mensing crossed for Gibson to head home a superb third goal.
And six minutes from time Keogh made it 4-1 when he finished the job after a post had denied Gibson his hat-trick.
CAPTION(S):
Keogh: Goal; Gibson: Hero
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| Title Annotation: | Sport |
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| Publication: | Sunday Mail (Glasgow, Scotland) |
| Date: | Apr 18, 2004 |
| Words: | 397 |
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