SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 5/10/24.

Well, at least we scored, Carlo Pignatiello doing the business.

But that’s us played everybody now and we still haven’t a win. It’s looking grim.

Next up, after the international break, is Arbroath away on the 19th.  In other circumstances I might have considered going but I can’t remember us winning a league game there. (I don’t think I’ve even see us draw, though we did once beat them in a play-off first leg.)

Edited to add: I forgot to say they hadn’t scored away from home before today.

SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 21/9/24.

Well, I suppose the unbeaten league run had to end sometime, but from the comments on the game I’ve read we were all over them apart from their goal.

This result, combined with Arbroath’s win over Annan, means we’re now (joint) bottom of the league. Ominous.

We really need to start winning games soon.

SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 24/8/24.

Another draw. Four in a row in the league now. And again we had to come from behind, this time from two goals down, Michael Ruth and Matty Shiels doing the business. Perhaps we should have won, though, as it seems Michael Ruth missed a penalty earlier in the second half than he finally scored.

I see we’re top scorers in the league with 7. We’ll need to begin stopping them at the other end though.

This lies opposite Gayfield football ground.

Entranceway. The balcony and canopy above the door, the windows in and beside the door, plus the rounded corner to the left – and the flat roof – are deco features. The glazing has been mucked about with though:-

Showing rounded corner, balconies, strong horizontals and verticals:-

View of side and rear:-

Typical Art Deco style Woolworths building, now an estate agents:-

Ridged roofline, pillaring. Plus buddleia!!

Reverse entrance is a Nickel and Dime:-

(aet 0-2.)

SPFL Tier 2 Play-off Final, Second Leg, The Rock, 13/5/18.

Well; we all knew that the good times wouldn’t last forever.

Yet for 93 minutes of this we were still a Tier 2 team.

Then all of a sudden no longer. That it was such a scruffy goal only put the knife in even more.

But after that I knew it was hopeless. Our defensive substitutions meant that there was no way we would be conjuring a goal in extra time. Our only hope was hanging on for penalties and that was unlikely given the momentum was against us and Alloa would be lifted and us deflated.

And the final nail in the coffin was driven in by an ex-Son in Jordan Kirkpatrick. Cracking goal though.

If only….

Kevin Nisbet had directed his header downwards more – or even to the near post rather than back across the keeper….

Andy Stirling had kept that rebound chance down instead of skying it….

Liam Burt had taken the ball for a walk to the corner flag instead of trying to score in injury time….

Alloa had scored from that double chance in the first, not the last minute. We’d have had to come out a bit and at least try to score. Froxy might even have been given a run-out….

We’d made the most of our breaks up the park in the second half last Wednesday….

Craig Barr hadn’t been suspended again. Dougie Hill looked much less comfortable than he did against Arbroath and Andy Dowie seemed affected too….

We actually had a striker….

Manager Stevie Aitken was not so wedded to defensive tactics….

It was a game too far really. We looked leggy and inhibited. All those catch-up games and the Challenge Cup run had taken their toll.

And so the great adventure comes to an end after six years.

Back to proper football grounds again next season. Ones where you can stand, not sit, that you can walk round to the other end at half-time, where you’re not stuck in a wee corner of the main stand. (New Broomfield, Stark’s Park and possibly Ochilview excepted.*)

We’ve had seven promotions in my lifetime. And now eight relegations.

I wonder how long it will be before we get promoted again.

And from which division.

*Edited to add:- and New Bayview. I’d forgotten it’s a one stand effort like ours at the Rock. Only the Angus grounds for the old-style experience, then. I can’t see me making it down to Stranraer.

Just two seasons ago Dumbarton finished third in Division 2 of the SFL. Arbroath ended five points and one place better off.

Despite that apparently greater pedigree it was Dumbarton that prevailed in the play-off semi-final between the two, consigning Arbroath to another season in Div 2, while the Sons climbed, via their play-off win, onwards and upwards to SFL Div 1 (now the SPFL Championship.)

That mere two years later Sons have ended the season fifth in Tier 2 while Arbroath finished bottom in the next league down and so the clubs will play two divisions apart next season.

Morton were runners-up in Tier 2 last season. This year (despite beating Sons twice!) they were more or less dreadful and finished a poor last.

Things can change so quickly in football.

I’ve just seen on the club website the announcement of the death of Colin McAdam.

“Hoof,” as he was known, was one of the first of Sons then youth players to break through during that golden period when we were promoted from Div 2 in 1972 and the few glorious years afterwards. (Glorious in Sons terms.) His brother Tom also played for the Sons.

Colin scored one of the most remarkable goals I’ve ever seen awarded. In a game where we were two down to Arbroath one of their players was given offside three yards inside our half. Colin hoofed the ball up into the box and it skited rather than bounced – straight into the net without anyone touching it. The goal was given. As an offside free-kick it ought to have been indirect. We won the game 5-2.

Colin McAdam: 28/08/1951 – 1/08/2013. So it goes.

So sad to hear of the death of a true Sons legend, Hughie Gallacher.

Despite his relative lack of height – only 5′ 7″ – his goal scoring record for Dumbarton is outstanding, 205 goals in 231 games. That 205 is the club record for goals scored.

He was part of that late 1950s team over whom grown men drooled in nostalgia in later years and I actually saw him play – maybe in his first spell with the club but certainly in his second. (I was very young then.)

Hughie scored all four of Dumbarton’s goals in an amazing game at Gayfield in season 1958-9 when Dave Easson got all five for Arbroath.

One of my earliest Sons memories is of Hughie taking over in goal one game against Cowdenbeath – no substitutes at all, never mind goalies, in those days. He was pretty good at stopping them as I recall, but we still lost that game.

Hughie Gallacher: 26/11/1930-14/06/2013. So it goes.

SFL Div 1 play-off, second leg, Gayfield Stadium, 12/5/12. (Aggregate 1-2.)

Why do we do this to ourselves?

This was torture. As Onebrow said to me at the end, “That was the best and the worst 0-0 draw I’ve ever seen.”

Arbroath are the best footballing side I’ve seen this season (in the game at Gayfield on 10^thMar; Cowdenbeath, though, were the most effective.) In the first half here however they abandoned their measured approach and were much more direct.

The omens were clear inside five minutes. Alan Lithgow made a mistake allowing an attacker in on Stephen Grindlay, who forced him wide, but he still got his shot in. Lithgow had recovered to head it off the line. A goal then might have sunk us.

We were barely in it for twenty minutes, Arbroath having several shots/headers on goal – a one-on-one save by Stephen Grindlay and other efforts put wide, but gradually we managed to foray upfield. Craig Dargo was through on their keeper but took it just too far past him and had to turn it back from the bye-line but his cross in was poor. Prunty was then right through but the keeper deflected it for a corner.

Arbroath came out for the second half much more settled and started to stroke the ball about. There followed a succession of chances for them. It didn’t feel like backs to the wall stuff, though, we just couldn’t seem to pass the ball to our own players. Stephen Grindlay had a very good save from a free kick and then an unbelievable one from a close range header. He without doubt saved the jerseys, Dumbarton’s man of the match, no question. He rode his luck a few times, though, when coming for the ball.

The second half was excruciating, with us mostly not able to get out of our own half and unable to keep it for long when we did.

Edited to add:- I forgot to say Lithgow had one magnificent tackle when an Arbroath forward seemed right through.

Late on, in one of our few flurries, sub Pat Walker nutmegged a defender by the bye-line, crossed it in and Mark Gilhaney forced the keeper into a save.

There was still time after that for Arbroath to force a couple of corners. The final whistle was a relief and a release.

Given our defensive record this season it’s a minor miracle we managed to keep a clean sheet. This was a magnificent and remarkably disciplined effort (Kevin Nicoll’s booking apart) by the lads.

We have to do it all again on Wednesday and Sunday, though.

Edited to add:- I was drained at the end of this. I hope I’ll be as drained (in a good way) next Sunday!

Sons players celebrate:-

Sons fans celebrate.

Just to show what an unusual day it was here’s a man in his shirt sleeves at Gayfield. The sun was out for most of the game. Normally you have to be well wrapped up. The wind got up as usual, naturally. It’s a vintage Palermo shirt apparently.