Queen's Park 1 Airdrie 1: Diamonds miss chance to close gap on Cove Rangers in League One title race

Airdrie missed the chance to gain ground on League One leaders Cove Rangers after being held to a 1-1 draw at Queen's Park.

A thumping strike from Charlie Fox fired Spiders in front but the Diamonds were level seconds later through Hearts loanee Scott McGill for his fourth goal of the season.

But the Diamonds will really be ruing Callum Smith's fist-half sitter at 1-1 when he fired wide from all of six yards.

Back-to-back draws means the Diamonds remain seven points behind leaders Cove Rangers - who were a held to a draw by Dumbarton - ahead of the top two meeting at Balmoral Stadium next week.

Queen's Park's difficult run continued as they have picked up just one win in their last 12 outings.

The sides had drawn three times during 90 minutes in their previous four meetings this season and just a solitary goal earned Airdrie victory in the other encounter, so it was no surprise to see another close affair at Firhill.

The Diamonds made one change from Tuesday’s 2-2 draw with Clyde as skipper Callum Fordyce dropped to the bench and player/assistant manager Scott Agnew came into the starting 11.

And there was a solitary change for the Spiders as well, coincidentally from their draw with Clyde on their last outing the previous Saturday, as interim boss Peter Grant brought Louis Longridge back into the side in place of Luis Longstaff.

Inside three minutes Agnew almost opened the scoring for Airdrie direct from a corner kick. He whipped the ball into the near post and a deflection took the ball onto the underside of the crossbar before Spiders cleared the danger.

Spiders came close themselves after 10 minutes when Liam Brown did well to create space for a cross and picked out Longridge darting into the box, but he didn't get