This reworking of a Joni Mitchell song was a hit for Nazareth, Dunfermline’s finest. As I work in that town, why not?

I did once before mention Nazareth in connection with the 1960s song My White Bicycle.

For comparison purposes here is Nazareth’s version.

Nazareth also had hits with Broken Down Angel, Bad Bad Boy and Shanghai’d in Shanghai.

A slightly shorter version of this post appeared as “Dumbarton FC, The Sons of the Rock” in The Bayview, Official East Fife Matchday Magazine, Issue 5, Saturday 27th August 2011.

Just what collection of players to wear their team’s colours fans will look back on with fondness must to a large extent depend on their age. Though someone of my years and long experience of following Dumbarton might say we rather lucked into it, young(ish) Dumbarton supporters will no doubt regard the promotion winning team of 2008-9 – none of whom now remain at the club only two short years later – with a rosy glow; albeit forever tinged with sadness at the tragic death of captain Gordon Lennon only a few weeks after lifting the trophy. And that side does have to its credit not only a 3rd Division championship but the longest consecutive playing time without conceding a goal in the club’s history; over 350 mins.

But no-one alive will remember what must be Dumbarton’s greatest achievements; a single Scottish Cup (in 1883) – a time when we were in the forefront of tactical innovation in using the 2-3-5 formation – and twice winning the top division, in 1891 (shared) and 1892.

In my memory Dumbarton have won promotion a total of six times – a seventh lies in the distant mists of 1913 when we were elected upwards – from sixth position! (In those days promotion wasn’t automatic. A Second Division Championship in 1911 still saw us in Division 2 for 1911-12.)

My father’s generation had much less to celebrate. It was fifty long years from relegation in 1922 till the Sons finally lifted themselves back into the top Division, with only the (Festival of Britain) St Mungo Quaich win of 1951 to lighten the darkness. There was, though, a tendency to romanticise the nearly men of the mid to late 1950s; a team that flirted with promotion but always fell short. It featured Tim Whalen and Hughie Gallacher (the club’s all time record scorer with 205 goals overall) whose stays overlapped with those of the long-standing full back partnership of Tommy Govan and Andy Jardine (250 and 299 appearances respectively, according to a website I consulted, most of them together.) I actually remember seeing those guys play but it was the fact that Hughie Gallacher took over in goal one game – no substitutes at all, never mind goalies, in those days – that really sticks in my mind. He was pretty good at stopping them as I recall, but we still lost that game.

One of the promotions was the elevation to the Premier Division in 1984, an adventure that lasted only the one season. A final taste of the elite alas, as we have never made it back. That team featured Bolton manager (and ex-Son) Owen Coyle’s two brothers in its midfield and leant heavily on the goals of Kenny Ashwood.

The Second Division winners of 1991-2, when Charlie Gibson and John McQuade starred, scored the single best Dumbarton team goal I can remember. Cowdenbeath had just equalised in a crucial top of the table clash at Boghead. From the kick-off the ball circulated round the team in a great passing move before, over a minute later, and without an opposition player touching the ball, John McQuade planted it in the net. Promotion was secured on the penultimate day of the season as Cowdenbeath and Alloa, the other contenders, both one point behind, only had each other to play. The Championship was duly sealed in a draw with Arbroath.

League reconstruction (as in 1922!) saw us demoted for 1994-5, placed in the new third tier. With Murdo McLeod as manager the side needed to win at Stirling – who themselves only needed to draw with us – in the last game to be promoted as runners-up. A 2-0 win sent Dumbarton fans into delirium. What happened in the next three seasons, though, was dire. Two successive relegations, including a period of over a year when we did not win a single game, ended up with us bottom of the whole pile in 1998. The following four seemingly endless years of Division 3 football saw our tenure at Boghead, at the time the longest occupancy of a single site in British football, come to an end. In this forum, though, I’d better not dwell on the result of the final game there.

Another runners-up promotion swiftly arrived in 2002. The prolific if frustrating Paddy Flannery (77 goals for the club in 175 games) was the spearhead of that side, with the less heralded Andy Brown a willing side-kick. The promotion hero, though, was goalkeeper John Wight who saved a penalty in the last minute of the last game to make sure we could not be overtaken.

For me, though, the one that sends the memory banks into raptures is 1972. That year it all came together. The club’s centenary season, 50 years since top flight football, the town’s 900th anniversary of Royal Burgh status. Kenny Wilson had an astonishing 38 goals in 36 league games, some of them in vital 1-0 wins. Mid-season he made it onto the scoresheet in a record twelve consecutive matches, and he scored all five in a 5-0 rout of Raith Rovers. And that 38 doesn’t include the free-kicks and penalties he won for Charlie Gallagher to bang in. But big Roy McCormack scored the peach. At Love Street on Christmas Day 1971 he walloped a volley from out near the touchline about fifteen yards into St Mirren’s half. It flew over the keeper’s head, hit the stanchion full on and bounced out beyond the penalty spot. It was astounding. The ref thought it had hit the bar but the linesman gave it. Roy thumped two others not quite so good in the games either side against Alloa the previous week and Clydebank the next. Sweet, sweet.

Other highlights are Jumbo Muir’s waltz all the way from our penalty area through half of the Clyde team at Shawfield before finally putting the ball in the net, Lee Sharp’s belter at Almondvale in 1996, the 5-2 win at Tynecastle in 1982* against a Hearts side desperate for promotion (we were up the park three times in the second half and scored each one) and the 0-0 draw in 1970 in the League Cup semi-final against the Celtic team that made the European Cup Final that season. The replay was 2-2, then in extra time a (Lou Macari?) cross was flagged by the linesman as out of play until Wilson headed it in. The flag mysteriously went down. (Bitter? Me? No. It’s only been forty one years.) We did have a bit of revenge. Celtic had scored another and started to play keep-ball. When we got it back we played keep-ball too. Except we suddenly switched to a quick passing move up the left, put in a great cross and scored. In subsequent seasons we had 3-3 and 2-2 draws at Parkhead in the league. After our second equaliser in the latter of those the ref was looking round desperately for someone to give him a reason to chalk it off. The linesman didn’t help that time.

Yet the real emotion wasn’t for these or any promotion. Somehow the crucial last day relegation avoiders in 1973, 4-1 against Dundee Utd, and 2003, 4-1 again, Raith the victims, have meant much, much more. Perhaps it’s the release of the fear that makes sure it’s so. The hope fulfilled. We non-glory hunters who follow lower league sides don’t get that very often.

Addendum:-
*It seems I have misremembered this game slightly. Big Rab’s blog a week or so ago featured a newspaper clipping which says we were 2-1 down at half time that day. So we were up the park not 3, but 4 times in the second half; and scored each one. Even better.

In his afterword to the article the programme editor says that in addition to being a long-term Sons fan, “Jack Deighton lives in Kirkcaldy and has taught in Cowdenbeath and Dunfermline. Jack knows all about pain.”

We don’t go to the flicks much, especially since the last local outlet dedicated to cinema was closed and it required a trip to Dunfermline to ogle the silver screen but the good lady fancied seeing this so we hied ourselves off to the local part time not-flea pit otherwise known as the Adam Smith Theatre.

Tamara Drewe started out as a serialised graphic novel written by Posy Simmonds which appeared weekly in the Guardian a good few years back now. As far as I can remember that original, the film closely follows its plot.

The story concerns the disruption to the lives of the succesful author Nicholas Hardiment and his much more competent and business-like wife, who together run a writers’ retreat in Devon, plus their handyman Andy when successful journalist and former village resident Tamara Drewe returns – complete with nose job – to her earlier home in the farm next door.

The goings on are witnessed and affected by a pair of local schoolgirls who hang about the local bus shelter – the buses have long since been withdrawn – and moon over pop stars’ pictures in magazines.

Their boredom is transformed when Tamara takes up with – and brings to live in the village – the very drummer whom one of them finds so attractive.

There were excellent performances all round, with occasional cartoon moments from Dominic Cooper as the drummer, but especially good ones from the two youngsters and from Tamsin Greig as the much put upon wife of Hardiment.

The film starts off comedically – there are plenty laugh out loud moments – but becomes darker as the plot unfolds. The conventions of fiction are followed to the extent that the “baddy” gets his come-uppance.

The film has a 15 certificate and that obviously means you can include people swearing and even show them having sex; as long as there’s no full frontal nudity.

The film isn’t profound, not saying much that hasn’t been said before, but it is entertaining.

Dunfermline’s First World War Memorial is just over the road from Dunfermline Abbey, or more accurately from the ruins of Dunfermline Palace. Being 1920s in origin there is a touch of Deco about it.

The Second World War memorial is in a smaller garden location adjacent to the Abbey grounds.

This is the Palace ruin. The WW1 memorial is behind to the left here.

Dunfermline was once Scotland’s capital, hence the lines from the poem/ballad Sir Patrick Spens,

Here’s my photo of the Abbey, which lies to the right and above the Palace. You can see its pointed turret in the Palace picture above.

The tower’s rim has King Robert The Bruce carved out in stone on its four sides.

The past couple of weeks car windows in my street have had condensation on them when I left the house. This doesn’t usually happen in August.

This morning (1st Sep) bang on cue the first mist of the autumn was hanging around. I’d have called it a haar but it persisted all the way to Dunfermline; haar usually only lies close to the coast and Dunfermline tends to avoid it.

Whether this presages another bad winter like last year I don’t know. I do know it’s not usually so cold so early.

The tree at work I have mentioned before is showing its autumn colours again. Mind you, it wasn’t looking too green even in June.

Winter woollies, then.

I’ve been out and about in Dunfermline with the camera again.

This is an Art Deco building in commercial use fronting onto the street known as the East Port.

A lawyer’s at the moment. Lots of horizontals and verticals.

The side of the building is almost as characterful. You can just see the metal balustrade on the roof towards the rear.

From the side. The extractor fans and fire escape spoil the appearance a bit. The metal balustrade on the roof is more obvious from here. I like the overlaps of the roof edges.

The sticky-out bit at the back. Pity about the fire escape gubbins. Typical rectangular chimney.

The picture below is of the building directly across the East Port. It is the former cinema known in its heyday as the Orient Express. It’s a stitch of two photos. I couldn’t get far enough back to get the whole thing in one shot.

The cinema was built in 1913, before the Deco era, but has some styling to the frontage so I thought I’d post it here. It was converted to a night club in 2004 but that has since closed.

I came across this building by chance walking through a lower part of the town, after I’d been to the Abbot House.
It’s a Christian bookshop now. What it was originally I’ve no idea.

There’s some nice detailing* above the windows. It’s more deco this side (west) than on the other.

This east side has a nice curve towards the back, though.

Great embellishment on the roofline. Except above the doorway the *zig-zag pattern goes all the way along the building and round the corner.

The doorway has some fine moulding work above it.

Unlike the Fire Station and the Glen Pavilion this is not a public building but a domestic dwelling. It doesn’t quite have the swagger of the house in Bennochy Road, Kirkcaldy – no cylindrical staircase for example – but it’s nice to come upon by surprise; as I did the first time I saw it.

The windows have definitely been replaced – typical modern double glazing.

The rear view is a bit obscured by trees but it shows the balcony and railing.

The aspect from the left also shows the balcony which may be a car port.

Here’s a close up on the tall and porthole windows.

Porthole windows were something of a thirties staple.

This is far from High Art Deco but the frieze above the entrance is a beauty and there are some Deco flourishes inside. It is definitely of its time, though; very thirties in appearance.

This is the west side of the South aspect with entrance doors.

This is the centre of the south side. It houses/housed the cafe.

South aspect, east side.

Close up on entrance and stairs leading up to it.

This is the frieze above the entrance.

A similar embellishment above the east side block.

West side of Pavilion.

East side. Fairly Deco.

Fanlight above window on east side.

External stage to rear (north side.)

I did promise in my one year’s anniversary post that I would put up some pictures of Art Deco in Dunfermline. This is the first set.

Of 1936 vintage, this is very similar in style to the Fire Station in Kirkcaldy which, being constructed a year or so later, is said to be a copy. There is interplay between verticals and horizontals here but this building lacks the painted highlights, the ironwork balconies and the East Coast vernacular chimney stacks of the Kirkcaldy one.

Dunfermline Fire Station is being replaced by a new building lower down the town. It has been proposed that this present building should be turned into an Arts centre.

The view from the west.

Rear view. Typical thirties window styling.

Detail on west side.

Detail on brickwork at front.

Pillar embellishment at front.

View from East.

As this view shows the long window slopes and in its present form obviously dates from the refurbishment of 1986.