Airdrieonians blew the chance to move to within a point of League One safety despite dominating at New Broomfield on Tuesday night.

Jim Lister opened the scoring for the Diamonds but defender Stewart Greacen's late equaliser earned lucky Stenny a share of the spoils.

Gary Bollan's men are now four points clear of rock-bottom Arbroath, who lost at Dunfermline Athletic, after extending their unbeaten record to six matches.

But Airdrie go into this weekend's fixtures still three points behind East Fife who occupy eighth place.

Diamonds boss Bollan made one change to the side which started the 0-0 draw at Methil with new signing Craig Barr replacing on-loan Dundee United teenager Ross Gilmour at right-back.

The Warriors arrived at the stadium following their spirited performance in the 3-3 draw with Rangers at Ibrox on Saturday. Caretaker manager Brown Ferguson stuck with the same starting line-up.

The first half belonged to Airdrie who missed a couple of excellent chances but were also denied on three occasions by Stenny keeper Chris Smith.

In the 15th minute, the ball fell kindly for Lister on the edge of the six-yard box but he blazed his shot into the seats behind Smith's goal.

Nicky Devlin almost scored a bizarre own goal when he fired the ball inches past the keeper's left-hand post. From the resulting corner, Smith tipped over Gregor Buchanan's header after he got on the end of Caolan McAleer's delivery.

Skipper Darren McCormack was just off target with a volley and left frustrated in the 35th minute when his effort from 20 yards was saved by the terrific Smith.

Midfielder Liam Watt was next to squander an opportunity for Airdrie when he blazed wide after a mix-up in the visitors' defence saw the ball roll nicely into his path.

Stenny were rarely a threat but a nice move involving Kevin McKinlay and Sean Dickson resulted in Sean Higgins driving a shot straight at Grant Adam shortly before half-time.

The Diamonds remained the better side and finally broke the deadlock in the 68th minute.

Once again, on-loan Partick Thistle winger McAleer played a key role with a burst into the area and a nice pass to Lister whose fifth goal of the season was deflected into the corner of the net.

The striker, who celebrates his 33rd birthday on Wednesday, should have doubled his and Airdrie's tally but was denied at point-blank range by Smith.

And that miss in particular was to come back to haunt the hosts after Stenny went straight up the park and levelled through Greacen from a Higgins corner.

Colin Paterson at New Broomfield.

Photographs © Robert Dalzell. Click to view full size.