Maryhill opened their league campaign with an unmitigated disaster of a result against Stonehouse, who were playing their first league game since returning to the juniors. In writing programme editorials or match reports, it's customary to sugar-coat the pill somewhat regardless of the result, along the lines of "a bad day at the office" or some such. In all honesty, the performance of the Maryhill team didn't warrant that, so to put it bluntly: we were rank rotten. Where we go from here is anyone's guess, but we currently are bottom of the bottom division albeit after one game, so we officially can't get any worse.

The wheels came off the barrow as early as the sixth minute when Shane Jackson shrugged off the attentions of Sinclair Soutar and shot low past Tiropoulous. The Hill did have some half-chances early on, with Scott Banks shooting into the arms of Graeme Wallace in the Violet goal, however it was the Lanarkshire side who doubled their advantage on 33 minutes, when the dangerous Sam Hepburn slotted home a cutback from a free kick while half the Maryhill team were still busy mouthing off to the referee about the award. To add insult to injury, just before halftime, Chris Colquhoun made it 3-0.

Half Time - Maryhill  0  Stonehouse Violet 3

Things didn't get any better after the break, and to be candid I found it difficult to keep track of bookings and substitutions, as I spent much of the second half conversing with shell-shocked and understandably irate Hill fans who could not believe the contrast between our fighting display at Yoker, and the impotent showing throughout the team just four days later. We did manage to pull one back in 62 minutes through Alan Russell. A half-hearted revival of sorts ensued, with Wallace pulling off a fine save to tip a net bound shot over the bar. It was to prove a false dawn though, with sub Dougie Adair restoring Violet's three-goal advantage on 75 minutes. Hill's humiliation was complete six minutes later when John Cunningham was adjudged to have handballed in the area. Another sub, Billy Stevenson made no mistake from the spot to round off a wretched afternoon for the Hill.

The game made a mockery of the bookies, who had installed Maryhill as favourites to win the division before a ball was kicked. With all due respect to Stonehouse, they were no more than an average Central Second side with a handful of decent players such as the Jackson twins and Hepburn. For them to be able to inflict a defeat of such proportions on us, as a Maryhill fan one has to fear for the season to come.

MARYHILL - Tiropoulous, Cunningham, A. Banks, Soutar, Ferguson, Maxwell, Callendar (McAndie 55), S. Banks, Scobie, McGivern, Russell
SUBS (not used) - Tolland, Ritchie, Stanley
BOOKED - Cunningham 22, A. Banks 41, McGivern 43, Scobie 62

STONEHOUSE - Wallace, C. Jackson, Gemmell, Bennett, Daly, McGrath, Munro, Hepburn, S. Jackson (Adair 65) , Colquhoun (Stevenson 71), Cryans
SUBS (not used) - Winter, Diver, Macintyre, Cairns, Gemmill
BOOKED - Daly 53

REFEREE - Chris Graham

MAN OF THE MATCH - None

OPPONENTS' MAN OF THE MATCH - Shane Jackson