A Son of the Rock

Maybe this one was written. It’s exactly 25 years since Dumbarton were promoted to the Premier Division. (Which incidentally also makes it 25 years since my mother died, earlier in the same week that promotion was clinched. In my mind I can never separate the two events. The joy of one muted by the sadness of the other. I never made that game of course.)

For reasons I can’t quite recall I also never made it to the promotion game in 1995, but this is the third Championship I’ve witnessed.

Never underestimate the power of anniversaries in football. Dumbarton’s Second Division Championship in 1992 was on the hundredth anniversary of the club’s outright win of the whole Scottish League. We also won a Division 2 title in 1972 (which coincided with the 900th anniversary of the granting of the town’s charter as a Royal Burgh and also came fifty years after the club’s demotion in 1922) and won promotion in 2002. Note the prevalence of 2 in the years there. Roll on 2012!

Note, here, that in the back half of the 20th century Tottenham Hotspur made a habit of winning the FA cup in years that ended with a 1.

Since it wasn’t in this sequence of 2s, the 25th anniversary of our promotion to the Premier had until recently escaped my notice as being in any way significant. In regard to this, that promotion, the one in 1995 and this year’s championship are out of sync. Maybe that’s why I was so gloomy about the possibility until the last few games.

There are numerological oddities in football’s history apart from straightforward anniversaries. I once worked with a Sunderland fan who said they were all convinced they’d win the FA Cup in 1973 because it they’d won it in 1937.

I’ve also seen some numerological thing about the years in which Brazil win the World Cup but can’t remember the details.

But here’s the biggie: Cowdenbeath have won the Scottish Second Division title three times; in 1914, 1915 (no automatic promotion in those days) and 1939. You’ll notice that just after or even during these triumphs Britain was embroiled in a World War. If Cowdenbeath ever win Division 2 again, be very afraid.

*Apparently these are the correct spellings of these two words.