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Today's modern day football managers, in the professional game, often complain about the constraints put on them within their respective clubs which hamper their team selections. None of them however, find themselves in the position, of only having 10 or 11 fit players available to them for selection. Ask any amateur club manager and he will tell of many such occasions. Saturday proved to be such an occasion for Halliburton. Robertson, Morgan, Anderson, E.Milne, England, Mitchell and Stubbs were all unavailable and we were left with only 11 fit and ready to do battle. The 11 put out to face P.A.United in the league were, Andrews, Sim, Marlow, Michie and N.Milne. Keith, Fulton, Murdoch and M.Woods. G.Wood and Graham. To add to the unavailabilites our scheduled referee called off and we had to put up with a second hand ref who firstly had to take charge of a match with a 12.30 k.o. then make his way across to pitch 9 where he would officiate our encounter with Pitmedden side P.A.Utd. Prior to k.o. we sat 2 points behind P.A. but with a game in hand and so if we could secure victory this afternoon then we would leapfrog the country side in the table. Throughout the first half we battled away but without ever really making any inroads into the opponents area. We never looked to have any belief about ourselves this afternoon. We were not even lifted by the breaking news that striker Graeme Woods had scored big time off the park and managed to fertilise his young lady…. night out planned for April next year! P.A.had a good chance to open the scoring in 15 mins when a shot came back off the bar. The ball fell onto the head of another attacker but Marlow got back to time his jump well and head away for a corner. The sweeper then linked with Sim to block a low drive out for another corner as P.A. intensified their stranglehold on the proceedings.Their midfield was dominating and every clearance we made was simply coming straight back in. Andrews made an excellent stop in 20 when he leapt to finger tip a long range drive over the top. We had only two half chances in the first half the first one set up by the P.A. keepers weak kick out. He miss hit it stright to M.Woods and with the keeper out in the right back slot the midfielder hit a sweet effort from the centre circle which floated over the keepers head and towards the net. Unfortunately a defender scrambled back to head it off the line. We had a similar chance later on when this time Keith moved on to the ball just on the edge of the centre circle with the full intention of slamming a full volley home for a glory goal! How wrong can one be as he miss hit his effort high and backwards! (H.T.0-0). This was the half when it all went pear shaped. We fell behind in 55. Marlow got up well to head a left wing cross away only for our midfield to watch it being taken down and slammed into the net from fully 30 yards.A second was luckily scored with a break of the ball off Michie then a third was knocked in after a low cross found Sim unable to prevent his man slotting home. Fulton by now was on his way to hospital for his monthly visit, this time with a nasty foot injury. We were down to 10 but it felt like 7. Marlow got involved in a bit of handbags after he was tackled very late from the back Then a P.A. sub scored their 4^th when he latched on to a through ball to go past Michie round Andrews and walk it into the net..(F.T.0-4). A very flat performance this afternoon. Granted it is difficult to lose the heart of your team, but we still had a decent 11 out on the park. We simply did not perform. The Hallitopman award goes to Fulton, he was not as bad as the rest.