A Son of the Rock

Ochilview, 8/11/08

After a game in which we never looked like scoring, and a point in the end was won, this was nevertheless an opportunity lost.

Stenny showed their game plan early. One of their players clattered into Stevie Murray in the first minute and was rightly booked. At 5 mins another went in late and obviously dangerously as the ref hauled out the red card immediately. (At Stenny the away support is confined to one end of the ground so this incident was quite far away from me; I can’t say if the red card was justified or not but the ref was in no doubt. The Dumbarton players left it to him to make his decision, though.) This was the lost opportunity; the chance of 11 against 10 for 85 mins.

On 15 mins Gary Wilson overextended his leg and collided with a Stenny player in what was a foul but no more than a yellow card’s worth. Stenny players immediately mobbed him and the ref in a clear effort to get him sent off – and succeeded; only one of them being booked for their over-reaction.

Stenny then proceeded to foul Dumbarton players at every opportunity for the rest of the half, their striker a particular culprit. He was eventually warned by the ref but not booked; the ref probably thought all hell would break loose if he did. I can see now why they are top of the Division; a physical approach has always paid dividends at the lower end of Scottish Football.

Thankfully in the second half things were calmer: maybe the ref had a word with the managers at half time. Curiously there seemed to be less space to play in with only 18 outfield players on the pitch instead of the usual 20. There were remarkably few chances for either team in the whole game.

I’d said to Onebrow before the start, “At this stage of the season I’d take a draw now,” and repeated it at half time. He was just about to say it to me when Stenny scored. Gordon Lennon’s clearing header didn’t get very far and the ball was played across to their scorer who struck it very well.

It all looked lost, but Chissie replaced Keegan and suddenly the Stenny back four was being pulled out of position. Moore came on for Carcary, who hadn’t been in the game, and things went back to much as before. Then a long range strike from Stevie Murray into a more or less empty net and there would only have been one winner after that. We’d managed to grind out a draw after being behind – a good trait to have developed.

We didn’t play well, probably because Stenny didn’t allow us to. But we stuck to it. And we’re still unbeaten away. I’ll take the draw.

One of the Stenny supporters in the stand rang a cow bell almost the whole game. A terracing wag in the away end was driven to ask, “Is that how ye attract the women round here?” Quite a subtle comment on both the local males’ articulacy and the local females’ pulchritude in only seven words, and highly non-PC; but in the context of a football game reasonably funny.

The Apache Army also asked of the (rather quieter) Stenny fans, “Shall we sing a song for you?”

Edited to add: artificial pitch – again the ball didn’t always bounce nor run truly. This affects both sides though.