Gala Fairydean Rovers 1

BSC Glasgow 3

David Morrison

at Netherdale

GALA Fairydean Rovers crashed to their fourth successive league defeat against BSC Glasgow at Netherdale on Saturday.

There was little to choose between the teams until referee Jonathan Gall awarded a controversial penalty with eight minutes

left on the clock.

In the aftermath he sent off Gala's Reece Donaldson for his reaction to the decision and also flashed yellow cards at skipper

Darren Smith and Scott Main.

As Main had already been booked he was also red-carded and Gala were soon reduced to eight men when Josh Morris

got a second yellow for throwing the ball to the ground in frustration after being fouled.

The mayhem continued in front of an outraged home support as manager Dean Shanks was sent off from the dug-out.

By this stage the game had been reduced to farcical levels and BSC took full advantage of their numerical superiority by adding a third goal in injury time.

It was an unfortunate climax to what had been an entertaining game between two teams looking for their first win of the season.

Kieran Watson's opener for Gala in the fifth minute was cancelled out by Adam Strachan's strike in 19 minutes.

A sign of what was to come arrived late in the first half when BSC's Declan Hughes was only yellow-carded for clattering the grounded Donaldson off-the-ball when the home crowd expected the colour of card to be red.

Both teams had chances to score before the game turned with the controversial penalty decision in the 82nd minute.

After a flurry of cards, Thomas Orr squeezed his penalty kick into the corner of the net past the diving Gregor Amos.

Being reduced to eight men, there seemed little prospect of Gala getting back on level terms although Dale Baxter fired a free kick wide.

BSC rubbed salt into Gala's wounds when Martin Grehan fired an angled drive into the roof of the net in the dying moments of the game to clinch all three points for the visitors.

Gala Fairydean Rovers: G Amos, L Stephen, S Main, C Watson, R Donaldson, D Smith. S McKirdy , K Watson, J Morris, R Craigie & D Baxter. Subs S Conaghan, F Neave, B Herdman, K Mitchell, A Crawford, L Scarpa & T Patterson.

*Gala Fairydean Rovers host Tranent Juniors in the opening round of The Football Nation East of Scotland Qualifying Cup this Saturday, kick off 3pm.