At the finish of this engrossing contest, you could have been forgiven for believing that East Stirlingshire had just won the Champions League.

Their fans roared with delight, while Spencer Fearn, the club director, whooped with glee and sprinted 50 metres across the pitch to embrace Jim McInally.

And the East Stirlingshire manager was equally full of joy after the final whistle, although conceded his side must aspire to better. In the cold light of day, all that the Falkirk-based side had achieved was avoiding bottom place in the third division, their win over Montrose consigning Forfar, who could only draw against Dumbarton, to that sorry fate.

Yet, when you have been in the doldrums for so long, the pinnacle of ninth place offers comfort of sorts.

"I'm delighted for them the players, for the fans, and old Les Thomson, the secretary, who can keep going to his SFL meetings the club would have lost their voting rights if they had finished last," said McInally. "Obviously, I'm not delighted about finishing ninth in the league - we have to be setting our sights higher than that in the future and make sure we are not in this position again. But now we have something to build on, the lads have fought hard over the last six weeks, and didn't deserve to be bottom."

In any case, on what was the last hurrah for Firs Park, prior to East Sirlingshire entering into a ground-sharing deal at Ochilview with Stenhousemuir, this was a splendid send-off from McInally's men.

His counterpart was not so happy and rued some sloppy defending: "Defensively, we were poor and we can't have any complaints about the outcome," said Jim Weir, the Montrose manager. "We just didn't deal with East Stirlingshire's threat and some of our defending was suicidal."

The home side survived a torrid first half, with a treacherous wind in their faces, before using it to their advantage after the break, with Andrew Brand at the apex of their attacking. Jamie Buchan looked a little out of sorts, his tendency to dwell on the ball leaving him ripe for a kicking.

To their credit, the hosts rallied from a poor start, when Jay Stein's speculative cross in was diverted into his own net by David King.

Lesser sides might have wilted, but the hosts began to seize the initiative, and levelled matters in the 40th minute, when Andy Rodgers shot past Stewart McKenzie. The stadium erupted as the home fans detected a turning of the tide and that feeling persisted as Montrose wilted, before substitute Joe Savage darted past the opposing defence and fired a superb shot home in the 65th minute.

That spelled curtains for the visitors, who seemed to have their minds on their midweek play-off tussle with Stranraer.

As the news filtered through that Forfar had fallen behind, Michael Bolochoweckyj headed David Nicholls' free kick past McKenzie to cement his side's part of the bargain.

A few moments later, the Forfar result was the cue for mirth, mayhem and high-fives, and nobody in the dilapidated old ground could argue that they didn't deserve it.