St Andrews United faced Haddington Athletic at home looking for a first league win of the season and manager Garry Wright handed a debut to new signing Andrew Johnson. The Saints players began the game in confident mood, having won at Lockerbie the previous week, and they started strongly whilst attacking down the hill. Ryan McManus tested goalkeeper Robbie Stirling with a free kick and Tom Milne saw a shot cleared off the line during the opening ten minutes. Robbie Peffers then fired a shot over the bar at the other end of the park before the same player headed a Corey Robertson cross wide of the target in the 11th minute. Indeed, the first quarter of the match was fairly evenly contested and both sides were playing attractive football in search of the opening goal. Luke Mahady lashed a shot over the Haddington crossbar and Peffers was pulled up for being offside on two occasions, which really annoyed the travelling management team. Those coaches subsequently became extremely irate when linesman Liam Redpath advised referee Kenny Brown to disallow what appeared to be the opening goal by Seamus Russell from a tight angle. The decision was again based upon offside but that meant the score remained at 0-0 as the players headed for their half time break.

However, the first goal of the contest duly arrived in the 55th minute when Gary Windram took possession of the ball on the left touchline near halfway prior to surging forward, cutting inside and finding the net with a shot from a tight angle. Saints’ goalkeeper Logan Halliday looked disappointed not to have done more to keep the ball out of his net on that occasion but he could do little about the next goal from Peffers. The lively striker added the final touch to a super passing move in the 62nd minute and the hosts looked dead and buried at that point. As such, Wright called upon the services of Lewis Payne, Owen Andrew and Lewis Craik from the bench and all three substitutes made positive contributions to proceedings. Payne promptly went close with a shot from a Ross Cunningham cross before Craik pulled a goal back in the 72nd minute following a scramble in the Haddington box. Not surprisingly, that goal gave the majority of people in the crowd of 115 a massive lift and United’s Freddie Rowe capped a man of the match performance by equalising in the 77th minute. Rowe collected the ball from Payne prior to blasting a terrific shot past a helpless Stirling and the visitors looked stunned to have surrendered a two-goal lead in such a short period of time.

On the other hand, the Saints were flying and Andrew sent the Recreation Park faithful wild in the 88th minute when he curled a contender for ‘goal of the season’ past Stirling from outside the box following more good work by Payne. The Haddington forwards then created two good opportunities during injury time but King blasted a shot over Halliday’s bar and the young goalie also made a good save from Peffers. Wright’s boys consequently recorded their first league victory of the season and first win at level six in the pyramid since March 2019. This was also the first time that Saints came from 2-0 down to win a match since the night the floodlights were officially unveiled in December 2021.