SPFL Tier2, The Rock, 8/3/16.

A welcome win and Christian Nade scored a hat-trick!

Had this game gone on last week I had thought of travelling through but of course it was postponed. Domestic circumtances this week precluded a trip to the west.

Slight fly in the ointment was Jon Routledge’s red card. But he was out for the Hibs game and didn’t get back in the team for Saturday’s debacle at Livingston.

Let’s hope the team that showed up against Hibs rather than the (same strating) side who misfired at Livi is the one that turns uo against Falkirk on Saturday tea-time. Yes, it’s a BBC Alba kick-off time.

SPFL Tier 2, The Rock, 27/2/16.

I wasn’t at the game – the good lady and I went to an antique fair in Edinburgh then roamed the charity bookshops in Stockbridge before entertaining ourselves with a meal out on the road home – I didn’t even look for the score till nearly midnight so sure was I that we’d get nothing from this.

I was astonished at the result. The best I’d hoped for from this was a 0-0.

Yet we had gone three up. Not so easy to hold on to against a full-time team pressing for promotion; as it proved.

Christian Nade opened his account for us, which is good, and I see Jamie Ewings got the call in goal.

With Livi playing Alloa we certainly needed something from the game. I’m delighted.

Our next two games are against the only two teams below us. It could be our season right there.

SPFL Tier 2, Cappielow Park, 13/2/16.

Well that’s the clean sheet run gone then. And we haven’t got into the habit of scoring….

Unfortunately below us Livi picked up a point and Alloa are showing disturbing signs of coming to life.

The game at St Mirren Park next Saturday has just grown in importance.

SPFL Tier 2, The Rock, 12/12/15.

Another win, another clean sheet, another opposition manager done for.

That’s Alloa’s last three managers and now St Mirren’s gone after losing to us.

Two league wins in a row. The last time we achieved that was the first two games of the season. I won’t dwell on the sequence we went on after those but if we could get a win next week things would really be looking up.

Scottish Cup, Third Round, The Rock, 8/12/15

A stonking win. Good to see young Donald McCallum get a start and a quick goal (19 seconds!) Also to see Jordan Kirkpatrick get on and score two goals.

Onwards and upwards, eh?

I see from the club website that if we beat Alloa in the Cup our next opponents would be Queen of the South at the Rock.

Given we’ve never even scored a goal against them since we moved to the Rock that’ll be us out of the Cup then.

Right now I’d rather take three points at Alloa this Saturday in the league over progress in the Cup this time next week. Doubtless it’ll be the other way round.

SPFL Tier 2, The Rock, 5/9/15.

OK, so it’s not me who is the jinx. I wasn’t at this one.

But this is the sort of game we need to be winning – or at least not losing.

It looks like the cup games against East Fife and Queen’s Park were the true harbingers for our season and the first two league games were aberrations. The outlook is much less bright than it was a fortnight ago. Will our chronic inability to score be the decisive feature this season?

So. Motherwell it was who stayed up. Convincingly in the end.

Tier 2 is going to be very tough again next season. There’ll be two of the biggest supported clubs in Scotland in Hibs and Rangers (having now found out for themselves that this division is devilishly difficult to escape in an upwards direction: can it be long before noises are made to increase the size of Tier 1? Or is that too cynical?) Also there will be six other full-time teams and an Alloa Athletic seemingly somewhat revived by new(ish) manager Danny Lennon. Eighth for the Sons would be a magnificent achievement. I’d take that right now.

We’ve got a new manager ourselves of course.

But I’m feeling nervous already.

SPFL Tier 2, Recreation Park*, 11/4/15.

Well it was only fair. We rolled over to Cowdenbeath last week so to give Alloa the same courtesy this, seems equitable.

So many things pointed to this result. They had a new manager. They hadn’t beaten us for fifteen games. They needed the points and we didn’t.

Yet the only difference in the first half was that their shots were on target and ours went just past the post – though our best was screwed well wide by Archie Campbell. We had more attempts in the first half than they did, their second goal wasn’t even a chance really but their two goals were both wonder strikes, one from a free-kick (the ref did not give us one in a similar incident and realtive position later in the half) but the other ought to have been closed down.

The second half was a bit meh. Their goal came after one of their players seemed to handle the ball on the halfway line but Danny Rogers ought to have made sure to get the ball when coming out for it rather than let the attacker lift it over him to leave an empty net.

As last week there weren’t many positives to take from this.

Our season now looks in danger of petering out but I suppose the players will be up for next week’s game against Rangers.

Despite us losing here, Cowdenbeath’s failure to win against Livingston means we cannot be caught for 7^th place. Scotland’s best part-time team again!

*I will never think of it as the Indodrill Stadium.

And without a ball being kicked. (Not by us anyway.) Plus with six games to go.

Congratulations to manager Ian Murray and the squad.

Tonight’s 1-0 win by Falkirk over Cowdenbeath means that Sons will play SPFL Tier 2 football again next season. Survival in this league has to be our first aim every season we’re in it. Anything beyond that is a bonus.

While it is true that either Cowdenbeath or Alloa can outdo our current points tally of 33 the arithmetic means it is not possible for both of them to do so since they play each other in the last game of the normal season. (What a tasty encounter that may be: though I think the last time they had a crucial last day game against each other – in 1991, for promotion in that case – I believe it was a 0-0 draw.) The lowest we can now finish is in eighth place, one above the play-off spot. Our present seventh position is way more likely, though.

We’re 9 points behind Raith Rovers with 18 to play for. Catching them would be a tall order but still worth striving for.

To emphasise what an achievement this is for the club it is worth pointing out that no part-time team has stayed at this level for so long since league re-organisation in 1994. (Cowdenbeath may yet equal us in this regard but are 1 point behind Alloa at the moment with the possibility of having to negotiate the play-offs to do so.)