It is advantage Annan in the League One play-off final after two thumping strikes from Max Kilsby and an Erik Sula own goal left Clyde with work to do to save their third-tier status.
The Bully Wee will welcome the Galabankies to New Douglas Park aiming to overturn a two-goal deficit after a difficult night in Dumfries and Galloway.
Kilsby fired home a first-time strike from the edge of the box in 17 minutes to break the deadlock, but Euan Cameron produced a fine finish of his own to level the scores before half-time, slotting a low 20-yard strike into the bottom corner.
But Kilsby had another wonder strike in his locker and restord Annan's lead in 67 minutes to the delight of boss Peter Murphy.
It got worse Clyde in the closing stages when Brian McLean's clearance hit off Sula and found the back of his own net to leave the Bully Wee starting at the drop into League Two unless the can pull off a big result on Friday night.
Boss Jim Duffy said: "We are disappointed in the end result.
“For a good part of the game we played well but in the latter part, after the second goal went in, we had the stuffing knocked out of us a little bit and Annan took advantage of that to start to express themselves.
"There was a lot of tired legs and maybe a few bodies weren't functioning as we would have liked them to in that last 10 minutes.
"We lost a bit of a freak goal, but it is advantage Annan, there's no doubt about it, and we just need to through everything at it on Friday.
"For 70 minutes we played well. We started the game well and I thought we were excellent in the first half and at least deserved to be level at half-time.
"We'll need to see where the players are come Friday and see if we can make a game of it.
"Everybody would rather be in Annan's position. You'd love to have a two goal advantage going into the last game of the season, so if I was in Peter's shoes I'd be delighted with that.
"We will give it our best shot and one thing I can never put against the players is a lack of effort or committment, we've had that in abuandance.
"We made a couple of errors at crucial times.
"Overall, it's two wonder strikes, two perfect strikes. When somebody hits them as well as that, there's not a lot you can do."
The second leg at New Douglas Park will kick-off at 7.35pm on Friday.
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