Things got off to a bad start after just five minutes when Ayr broke free down the left wing and Peter Condron turned a dangerous cross into his own net. The visitors went further ahead when Nicky Sutherland failed to deal with an ambitious backpass from Chris Devlin, playing it straight to the feet of an Ayr striker who had a simple task to score. The deficit was reduced immediately when Charlie Kirkwood spotted the Ayr keeper off his line and took advantage of the wind to score from the kick-off. Shortly afterwards, we were on level terms when Paddy Kelly chased a long ball from Stevie Walker and slid the ball past the keeper and just inside the far post. A good spell of possession almost saw us go ahead but the visiting keeper did well to touch Walker's shot onto the post.

Early in the second half, we took the lead for the first time in the match when Scott Traquair's throw-in found Kelly in the box, and our top scorer had enough space to chest the ball down, turn, and knock it past the keeper from close range. There then followed a long spell of fairly even play, during which Ayr were unable to use the wind to their advantage, but they finally grabbed an equaliser after some defensive confusion allowed one of their forwards to nip in and score.

Ayr regained the lead within a minute when we were unable to clear the ball during a goalmouth scramble, and we had a mountain to climb when what looked suspiciously like a cross managed to sneak in at the far post. After some lengthy Ayr celebrations, the (neutral) referee blew the final whistle almost immediately after the restart, to howls of protest from the Sparta Jag players - the match had kicked off on time so there didn't seem to be any reason for it to have lasted less than 80 minutes.

Squad: Sutherland; Sangster, Walker S, Anderson, Deans, Derrick; Condron P, Kirkwood, McGlennon, Devlin, Donnelly, Condron J; Kelly, Traquair.