Dundee United 2-2 Dumbarton

SPFL Tier 2, Tannadice Park, 29/4/17.

Well, it’s not quite done.

We certainly can’t be relegated automatically but barring a nine goal swing between our game against Falkirk at the Rock on Saturday and Raith’s at home to Ayr we won’t be in the relegation play-off – and that has the (less likely) back-up that St Mirren also don’t get a point from their game with Hibs.

At the start a point didn’t look possible from this game. Dundee United stormed out of the blocks and came close too many times for comfort; as befitted a team looking for second place in the Division. Yet they didn’t score and we came into it a bit. It looked like we’d weathered the storm but then they scored from a corner. Alan Martin got his hands to it but couldn’t keep it out. He did make a great save from a header a few minutes later. Curiously though I was never in any doubt that he would; he’s a great reaction keeper.

Robert Thomson came close to us from a corner of our own glancing his header just over the bar onto the net’s roof. But it was only a delay. A corner from the other side was delivered fairly poorly, straight to a defender but he only hooked it to the edge of the box where it was first-timed back across goal to where Robert Thomson was steaming in. Cue scenes in the away end.

At half-time I remarked I hadn’t seen it being at 1-1 when the game had only been five minutes in. I was grateful for it though.

The second half we were very in it to begin with. Andy Stirling and Lewis Vaughan were starting to get space on the wings and Sam Stanton through the middle. He it was with a fine run made the opportunity for Lewis Vaughan to put us ahead. Dreams of a win in Dundee and arithmetical safety began. It wasn’t the only opportunity of the half, a squared ball was unfortunately behind the inrushing Robert Thomson or he’d have had a tap in.

United didn’t really look threatening but suddenly scored out of the blue. Sadly for Alan Martin it was a save that squirmed away from him to an oncoming attacker that gave them the equaliser.

For the last ten minutes we were under the cosh a bit but throughout the game we had kept our shape really well, the players clearly know what they are to do. A couple of scrambles near our goal line and then a bit of holding the ball up near their corner flag and the ref blew for full time.

All the players and staff came to applaud the Sons fans in the away end amid much acclaim for their efforts.

A draw at Tannadice is a great result for the Sons. I think it’s the best one we’ve had there since they got promoted from the old Division Two in the late 1950s. And we’ve taken seven points out of a possible twelve from United this season. Amazing.

Fingers crossed for a survival Saturday at the weekend.

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  1. Donald Kemp

    Hello Jack

    We actually got a 3-3 draw in the league at Tannadice in the autumn of 1974, United equalising in injury time if I remember rightly. Dennis Ruddy had a stormer that day and also scored (for us!), which was a bit of a collector’s item. In keeping with football in the ’70s, I also remember my friend and I being ambushed at the foot of the Hilltown, but showing a turn of pace that would have put any of our forward line to shame, made it back over the footbridge to the safety of my parents’ car at the swimming pool car park. I was also at the League Cup sectional game at Tannadice in 1976 where we managed a 1-1 draw. I think Murdo scored that day.

  2. jackdeighton

    Donald,
    Thanks for the info. I wasn’t at either of those games – I was a student at the time, home games only, so I didn’t remember them.
    But if it’s only three draws in over fifty years it shows how great an effort Saturday’s was.
    Granted we weren’t in the same league as them for a lot of that time but I can remember wins at the almost equally elusive Tynecastle and Easter Road which some might regard as harder places to succeed.

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