HAMILTON’S immediate future will be as a Premiership club as once again they somehow managed to prove their many doubters wrong, beating the odds to win their play-off final.
As for Dundee United, what happens next is far from certain. If the rumours are to be believed, they desperately needed promotion given their less than brilliant financial situation.
Jobs will be lost and for the second year they find themselves in the Championship. Let’s hope they can find a way to avoid finding themselves in real trouble.
But what can you say about Hamilton?
Yesterday they were without Massimo Donati, who was injured, the influential Darian McKinnon, who was suspended, and although captain-for-the-day Dougie Imrie did make it, he had bruised ribs. Club captain Michael Devlin was in the stand having ruptured his cruciate ligament.
Despite all of that. this tiny club — and that’s what Hamilton are compared to so many others — continue to out-perform. Sure, there are better teams, but there can’t be many in which such a strong spirit exists.
Next season will be their fourth campaign in the top tier, which is a club record.
Martin Canning was close to tears at the end, and no wonder. This season has not been easy for this decent man who for many home matches has had to endure personal abuse fired his way from some supporters.
His job was to keep the club up and he did that.
Sean Dillon, the United defender, lost his temper with one of his own supporters at the end. That’s how much it means to players and fans. Another season in the Championship was a huge fear, especially for manager Ray McKinnon, who looked like death at the end.
Say what you like about the play-offs and the fairness of them, and plenty have over the last four years, but they add some real excitement to the end of the season, even though the quality of play here was a tough watch at times.
Given everything which was at stake — and we are talking about peoples’ livelihoods — this was understandably not pretty. Indeed, it was downright ugly at times. Essentially, it was the kind of game you would expect from a tense occasion on the awful surface at Hamilton.
The scrappy encounter was littered with nervy mistakes at both ends, which suggested that an error would be the best chance either side had of breaking the deadlock.
The goal came with 64 minutes on the clock, when Hamilton’s McMann passed through a number of United players to Ali Crawford, who had his back to goal on the edge of the box. His pass to Greg Docherty allowed the midfielder some precious time to aim his shot past two rushing defenders and along the ground into the bottom corner.
The directors’ box at the SuperSeal Stadium is right behind the press boxes. You could see the colour drain from the faces of those from Dundee.
McKinnon’s men huffed and puffed but never looked like getting an equaliser. Murray did get one shot on target with six minutes to go, a half volley from the edge of the box which Matthews dealt with, but that was about it.
It was to be Accies’ day.
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