ARBROATH secured their first point in five outings from an end-to-end encounter at Gayfield.
Barry Sellars fired the Red Lichties ahead with a stunning 20-yard free kick. But Queens were level before the interval when Jim Brough levelled from Paul Cairney's cross.
Sellars should have secured all three points for Arbroath, but he sent a second-half spot kick off the crossbar after Robbie Raeside was tripped by Damiano Agostini.
From THE COURIER
| Sellars' delight—and despair | |||
ARBROATH'S BARRY Sellars was both hero and villain for the Lichties against Queen's Park on Saturday, bagging a stunning goal to ensure a share of the points but also missing a penalty that would have kept all three at Gayfield. It was his second spot-kick miss in as many home games and his third this season. "It's just one of those things," said Sellars. "I picked a side of the goal and hit it well enough but it struck the post. I was just trying to keep it away from the keeper. "But anyone watching us in the last couple of games will see we are playing well. We just need more breaks of the ball to go in our favour." The match had opened evenly before, on 15 minutes, Sellars sent a 30-yard free-kick into the top-left- hand corner of Queen's goalie David Crawford's net. Anthony Quinn then missed a gilt-edged chance to level the match for the visitors six minutes later, firing over the bar. Next it was Arbroath's turn to rue their luck when Scott Gates ran down the left and crossed into the area where Kevin McMullen fired in a shot that crashed off the bar. The sides were level after 36 minutes, Jamie Brough stabbing the ball home after Arbroath failed to clear the danger. On the hour the hosts were handed a superb chance to restore their lead when John Fraser and Quinn went down inside the Spiders' box while jumping for the ball. The Queen's frontman appeared to lash out at Fraser on the deck, and the referee pointed to the spot as players from both sides rushed the scene. Astonishingly, referee George Salmond failed to brandish a single yellow card—something he seemed reluctant to do more than once during the match as loose tackles from both sides went unpunished time and again. There were further goalscoring opportunities for both sides but the clock eventually ticked down without anyone finding the killer edge. "This is football the world over," said Arbroath boss John McGlashan. "You have opportunities to take three points and if you don't it can come back to haunt you, and it nearly did for us. "We played reasonably well again and the players are dis appointed not to get three points, but at least this stops the rot. "The players are down, but I'm not. If we weren't creating chances then there'd be concern, but we will play a lot worse than this and win so I take a lot of heart from it. "We're doing everything right." | |||