IN the swirling wind and the relentless rain, there were a few passages of play that had you wondering what the point of all this was.
One saw a succession of goal kicks land closer to Derek Gaston’s own byline than the halfway line, such was the ferociousness of the gale he was trying to wade into. Another had a hapless Arbroath player chasing a ball that would just not stay on its spot. Then a flurry of passes went 30 yards astray, and all but the hardiest of souls were wishing they’d taken up an indoor sport instead.
There were, though, a few moments that really mattered. Most of all Sean McGinty’s equaliser, which cancelled out Yasin Ben El-Mhanni’s potential winner and, however marginally, clawed back some ground on league-leading Queen’s Park.
“Both sets of players deserve a lot of credit,” said Ayr United manager, Lee Bullen. “The wind had a big part to play in it.”
When Arbroath last ventured down to Somerset on a wretched January’s day, they were first in the league, writing their own footballing fairytale. This visit could not have occurred during more starkly different circumstances; only the grace of Hamilton Accies’ miserable plight has kept them off the foot of the table.
There are mitigating factors for that decline, not least of all the Jack Hamilton and Joel Nouble-shaped holes in their attack. Encouragingly, Sean Adarkwa, playing just his fifth senior game, looked like he could go someway to filling them.
It was the young Englishman, teed up by full debutant Ryan Dow at the end of a dart into the Ayr box, who nearly set the cat among the early roosting pigeons, only for Charlie Albinson to push his drive away.
The hosts soon had a stranglehold on the game. They were just too strong for the part timers, white shirts swarming towards Derek Gaston’s box at every opportunity. Gaston was forced to push wide from Ben Dempsey at the end of a quick counter, before a flurry of handball shouts came and went. A Josh Mullin free kick later tested the away goalkeeper’s concentration.
This was not a match for the casual supporter. For Arbroath, playing into the first-half gale felt a little like trying to swim against a raging current.
Eventually, however, Ayr’s dominant mood told. When Jayden Mitchell-Lawson drove into the box, Arbroath’s creaking defence folded, bringing the winger down. Dempsey’s only trouble in dispatching the kick was the wind, but, after a few false starts, the ball finally stayed still long enough for the former Charlton man to convert.
Out of nothing, tensions boiled over. Dick Campbell - a man not a stranger to Somerset Park drama - was sent off within seconds of taking his place in the dugout when he raged at Craig Napier. Moments later, a rammy threatened to ensue, players swarming the referee while Yasin Ben El-Mhanni lay prone on the turf.
But the importance of the wind could not be overstated. As the second half wore on, all of the timidity felt by Arbroath was coursing through Ayr veins. While Gaston had had to sharply deny Dempsey his second, the away side soon made it count.
Ardakwa pounced on panic in the Ayr ranks to snatch his first professional goal - which his display fully merited - before El-Mhanni’s dipping cross was carried into the back of Albinson’s net, landing a second jab while the Honest Men still lay stranded on the canvas.
The conditions could only hide the apparent gulf between the two sides for so long, and a spell of pressure finally saw McGinty head home from a corner.
At least both teams can enjoy the point while they spend the next week drying off.
“We are disappointed we didn’t win the game,” said Arbroath assistant, Ian Campbell. “In these conditions - I haven’t seen it as bad as that - it is a lottery.”
