Women's Scottish Cup: Forfar Farmington squeeze past battling Cumbernauld Colts

Forfar Farmington squeezed past a battling Cumbernauld Colts at Broadwood

A bizarre winning goal saw Forfar Farmington scrape into the SSE Scottish Cup semi-finals with a 2-1 win against unlucky Cumbernauld Colts.

Colts had shocked their visitors with an early opener from Sarah Wardlaw, but after Laura Parsley's equaliser a goalkeeper error settled the tie.

They join holders Hibernian in the draw, who beat Glasgow Girls 9-0.

Glasgow City beat Jeansfield Swifts 6-0 and Rangers were 3-0 winners against Hamilton to complete the last four.

In the only Scottish Building Society SWPL 1 game played on Sunday, Celtic defeated Spartans 3-0.

Forfar have been runaway leaders in SWPL 2 this season, and after avoiding the big guns in the draw they were offered a golden opportunity to reach the semi-finals.

However, they found out early that SWFL Division 1 South side Colts, despite their lowly status, had other plans.

Wardlaw won a foot race down the right-hand side to get to a long ball from defence. She hit it first time, giving the goalkeeper no chance as it bounced off the far post and in.

They had 75 minutes still to get through. However, goalkeeper Angela McGann was calmness personified when she coolly stopped a long looping ball with her foot as the home side looked comfortable enough dealing with Forfar's threat.

Danni McGinley was finding space for Forfar but her weak shot into the hands of McGann summed up her and Forfar's afternoon.

Chances were sparse, but they did find a breakthrough nine minutes before half-time when Parsley flicked the ball past the goalkeeper and knocked it into the net.

It was not one-way traffic though and Nicole Hutchison made Forfar goalkeeper Fiona McNicoll work when she had a go from distance.

Colt's McGann has an unorthodox style of goalkeeping, and she elected to kick away Nicola Davidson's free-kick as Forfar came out determined to apply more pressure on their hosts' goal in the second period.

But no-one could have predicted how the second goal would arrive.

Julia Scott's corner kick was caught by McGann, who landed awkwardly and fell backwards, bringing the ball over the line with her.

The referee had no option but to award the goal, while McGann needed lengthy treatment.

It was harsh on the young goalkeeper and on Colts who until that point had given everything.

Melissa Porter forced a save from McNicoll as Colts tried to get back level, before McGann did well to get behind McGinley's fierce effort at the other end.

Parsley could have finished the contest when a poor pass back set her free in the box, but her touch let her down, before McGinley and Gemma Collier passed up late efforts.

Forfar Farmington head coach Mark Nisbet: "In the cup the result is the most important thing, but the performance level from us today wasn't anywhere near where we expect it to be. We gave the ball back to Cumbernauld far too often, and we made it difficult for ourselves.

"I just thought overall today we were a wee bit lethargic, a wee bit off the pace.

"We're delighted to be in the semi-final, we never expected to here. We look forward to whoever we get in the draw and you never know, maybe we'll get into the final if we get a bit of luck."

Katie McCabe (right) watches as she scores her first and Glasgow City's third against Jeanfield Swifts