Europa League* Final, Arena Națională, Bucharest, 9/5/12.

The difference here was in a striker who could fashion goals for himself from very unpromising situations (Madrid’s Falcao) and one who may have been carrying an injury (Bilbao’s Llorente) though Madrid’s defending contributed to the latter’s ineffectiveness. Bilbao laboured in the first half and, apart from Falcao, so did Madrid.

In the second, Bilbao had to chase the game and swarmed all over the Madrid half but weren’t able to create a clear cut opportunity – except once when Courtois made a great block. Bilbao also seemed unable to get enough width into their play.

Vulnerable to the break, Bilbao fell to the sucker punch from Madrid’s Diego, another goal created from an unpromising situation. It might have been better defended just the same.

Bilbao’s players are mostly young so may come again. Muniain, with his scurrying run and combative attitude, reminded me of ex-Son Andy Geggan (but an Andy Geggan who can play.)

Speaking of the Sons, a narrow 2-1 win over Arbroath last night makes Saturday’s second leg (with our rank record up there) very iffy.

*So-called.

Nerves are beginning to jangle as our play-off semi-final looms.

I’ll not be at the Rock tonight – the logistics were against me – but I hope that, at the very least, we haven’t already lost it before Saturday.

It’s 12-9 to Arbroath in our games so far this season (6-6 at the Rock) so a 0-0 draw is unlikely.

I’ll have the Europa League* final on the TV to take my mind off things, though.

*So-called.

SFL Div 2, Forthbank Stadium, 28/4/12.

So for the second year in a row our post-season destiny is settled with a game to spare. And we’re in the play-offs!

This is an outstanding end to a campaign where I’m sure most Sons fans would have been happy with survival in the Division. Very well done to Manager Alan Adamson, the backroom staff and the players.

The game itself wasn’t a classic. There was perhaps too much riding on it with Stirling hoping to avoid relegation. We had the better of the first half with Pat Walker coming close twice early on, Brian Prunty almost converting a Scott Agnew cross-come-shot and Stirling only the one really threatening effort on goal.

Their goal was well taken if a little out of the blue. Stirling hadn’t really looked threatening with too many wrong decisions on the ball and misplaced passes or shots.

Arlan Mptata came on and looked skillful, if perhaps too inclined to elaborate a bit – at this level players sometimes get in the way by accident rather than design – but he glided past his defender with ease a couple of times.

Our equaliser was bizarre. It’s the sort of goal you lose when you’re bottom of the Division, nothing is going for you and you’re doomed to relegation. A cross was headed into the air by Stirling’s no 2, it looped up and the keeper grabbed it as it came down but it had carried over. The lino flagged straight away. The keeper was maybe hampered by the injury he’d sustained earlier in the half but both should have dealt with it better.

After that Stirling threw the kitchen sink at it, playing men up. They had a four on two at one point where the attacker still managed to let one of the two get in a tackle. They also had what looked a penalty from where I was sitting up the other end but the ref blew for a dive and booked the attacker. A let-off I thought, but seeing the footage on Sons Player the ref got it spot on.

Then in stoppage time, at a corner, sub Craig Dargo was left totally unmarked to head the winner. Third in the Division sewn up – our highest finish in the SFL since 2004.

So there’s a nothing game next week against Brechin but the boys need to keep focused.

Then the play-off with Arbroath. Not a team we have an especially good record against.

SFL Div 2, Central Park, Cowdenbeath, 24/3/12.

We were well beaten. Cowdenbeath may not be the best footballing team I have seen this season – Arbroath remain that – but they are probably the most effective. None of our players got a moment’s peace. Their players’ willingness to chase, harry and press, their eagerness to get to the ball, was an object lesson. This is how to deny the opposition the opportunity to play.

Add to that our continuing inability to defend set pieces and, in this game, to clear our lines or even simply pass the ball and it was a recipe for heavy defeat. Kevin Nicoll had a terrible game in midfield – absolutely awful – and I lost count of the number of times two of our players went for the same ball or one hit it against another and so lost possession. And having two smallish strikers up against tall defenders isn’t perhaps the best recipe for success.

We started brightly enough – without ever threatening their goal – but the signs at Cowden corners were there from early on. And so it came to pass that from one of those, Stephen Grindlay let the ball through him for the second game in a row. Their second came after we had again failed to clear the ball and it broke to the guy who had an easy chance.

Then, a minor miracle. Against the run of play and out of nothing Craig Dargo eventually made the most of a Joe Mbu mistake to score his first for Sons across the goalkeeper. It seemd to take an age to hit the net.

Faint hopes of a comeback were extinguished when Mbu was left unmarked from a free kick.

I was going to say we dominated the second half but that would only be true of possession. We threatened about twice and the keeper saved them both. At least we competed a bit better and started trying to stretch them wide.

Their fourth was a direct result of our (ridiculously late) double substitution as Cowden exploited the space left by Ryan Finnie’s removal to surge down the left and whip in a cross.

They should have got a fifth a minute later but somehow their forward hit it into Grindlay from 5 yards out.

After our straight losses to Cowden and Arbroath two weeks ago I had feared that after this one we’d be level with Stenny, but they lost today too.

Still four points ahead of fourth (with a negative goal difference!) but E Fife are coming up on the rails.

A few photos of Gayfield Park, home of Arbroath FC, from last Saturday.

This is the view of the ground from near Arbroath War Memorial.

The next was taken from an excellent vantage point to see that Mark Gilhaney’s shot last Saturday did cross the line after bouncing down from the bar. It also shows the north covered terracing.

These next two remind me so much of Boghead.

All that’s missing is the pie-stall set into the side of the stand (but that went when they replaced the old pavilion at Boghead.)

And, yes, Gayfield is only five metres from the high-tide line.

Some more photos of Gayfield are on my flickr.

Cenotaph-like, this is an imposing structure on a hill above the southern approaches to Arbroath, overlooking the Firth of Tay and the North Sea.

WW1 names are on the front and back, WW2 on the sides. There is also one name from 1972 on the plaque added on the lower left.

SFL Div 2, Gayfield Park, 10/3/12.

I shouldn’t have gone to this game. I have never seen us win at Gayfield. The hoodoo continues.

First off, Arbroath are the best team I have seen this season. They were neat, tidy, passed the ball well and played some very good stuff. (I have yet to see Cowdenbeath, that joy is due in a fortnight.)

But the very early stages were even, an Arbroath move after Scott Agnew misplaced a pass needed a good save from Stephen Grindlay to prevent a goal then we came into it for a bit. In fact we scored. You won’t see it reflected in the score-line but Mark Gilhaney cut in and smashed the ball over the keeper, off the bar and down. I was probably among the six best placed people in the ground to see that it had crossed the line. The ref and lino were way behind things though and could not be sure so didn’t give it. That might have made a difference but I doubt it.

Shortly after that Brian Prunty was taken ill, tried to play on but eventually had to go off, which maybe unsettled us as Arbroath proceeded to dominate.

Their first came from a cross when three of their players were left free in the box. Another sweeping move a few minutes later saw a headed goal. I’ll need to see Lichties TV to decide whether Grindlay could have come for it. (At half time I heard an Arbroath fan say the wind had held the ball up for their forward. At Arbroath the elements are always against us.)

The second half was not much of anything. We huffed and puffed but made only one half-chance. Late on we went 3-4-3 and became ridiculously open at the back. Arbroath carved out one great opportunity and I had resigned myself to 3-0 but Stephen Grindlay pulled off an unbelievable save.

Scott Agnew had a poor game in midfield, debutant Craig Dargo had some nice touches but put the half-chance over, Prunty’s replacement Ally Graham might as well not have been on the pitch, sub David Gray turned his man a few times and got his crosses in but didn’t seem able to head the ball.

Any chance of us winning the championship disappeared on Tuesday night. With this game so did any chance of second. I hope two defeats in a row hasn’t put the heads down.

On this evidence, though, we will not win in the play-offs (if we are in them.)

Take a look at these historical league tables (top four only) which show when Cowdenbeath FC has won the Scottish Second Division.

Scottish League Division Two 1913-14

1 Cowdenbeath P 22 pts 31
2 Albion Rovers P 22 pts 27
3 Dundee Hibernian P 22 pts 26
4 Dunfermline Ath P 22 pts 26

In those days promotion wasn’t automatic so Cowdenbeath were in Division Two the next year. Cowdenbeath were one of three teams on equal points at the top.

Scottish League Division Two 1914-15

1 Leith Athletic P 26 pts 37
2 St Bernards P 26 pts 37
3 Cowdenbeath P 26 pts 37
4 East Stirlingshire P 26 pts 31

A three-way play-off decided the league winners. Cowdenbeath defeated Leith Athletic at East End Park and St. Bernards at Easter Road to take the title.

Scottish League Division Two 1938-39

1 Cowdenbeath P 34 pts 60
2 Alloa Athletic P 34 pts 48
3 East Fife P 34 pts 48
4 Airdrieonians P 34 pts 47

Cowdenbeath’s only other Championship was in Div 3 in 2006. Their other promotions came as runners-up, through play-offs or as a result of another club’s financial problems leading to a readjustment in the leagues.

So does anyone spot something here?

Well, I notice that every time Cowdenbeath have been Champions of a Division 2 in Scotland the UK has been involved in a major (world) war the next September.

Now take a gander at the present position in the SFL Div 2 (as of 7/2/12) :-

1 Cowdenbeath P 20 pts 41
2 Arbroath P 20 pts 39
3 Stenhousemuir P 20 pts 31
4 Dumbarton P 19 pts 28

Gulp!

Come on Arbroath!!! (And the Sons, obviously.)

A slightly shorter version of this post appeared as “Dumbarton FC, The Sons of the Rock” in The Bayview, Official East Fife Matchday Magazine, Issue 5, Saturday 27th August 2011.

Just what collection of players to wear their team’s colours fans will look back on with fondness must to a large extent depend on their age. Though someone of my years and long experience of following Dumbarton might say we rather lucked into it, young(ish) Dumbarton supporters will no doubt regard the promotion winning team of 2008-9 – none of whom now remain at the club only two short years later – with a rosy glow; albeit forever tinged with sadness at the tragic death of captain Gordon Lennon only a few weeks after lifting the trophy. And that side does have to its credit not only a 3rd Division championship but the longest consecutive playing time without conceding a goal in the club’s history; over 350 mins.

But no-one alive will remember what must be Dumbarton’s greatest achievements; a single Scottish Cup (in 1883) – a time when we were in the forefront of tactical innovation in using the 2-3-5 formation – and twice winning the top division, in 1891 (shared) and 1892.

In my memory Dumbarton have won promotion a total of six times; – a seventh lies in the distant mists of 1913 when we were elected upwards – from sixth position! (In those days promotion wasn’t automatic. A Second Division Championship in 1911 still saw us in Division 2 for 1911-12.)

My father’s generation had much less to celebrate. It was fifty long years from relegation in 1922 till the Sons finally lifted themselves back into the top Division, with only the (Festival of Britain) St Mungo Quaich win of 1951 to lighten the darkness. There was, though, a tendency to romanticise the nearly men of the mid to late 1950s; a team that flirted with promotion but always fell short. It featured Tim Whalen and Hughie Gallacher (the club’s all time record scorer with 205 goals overall) whose stays overlapped with those of the long-standing full back partnership of Tommy Govan and Andy Jardine (250 and 299 appearances respectively, according to a website I consulted, most of them together.) I actually remember seeing those guys play but it was the fact that Hughie Gallacher took over in goal one game – no substitutes at all, never mind goalies, in those days – that really sticks in my mind. He was pretty good at stopping them as I recall, but we still lost that game.

One of the promotions was the elevation to the Premier Division in 1984, an adventure that lasted only the one season. A final taste of the elite alas, as we have never made it back. That team featured Bolton manager (and ex-Son) Owen Coyle’s two brothers in its midfield and leant heavily on the goals of Kenny Ashwood.

The Second Division winners of 1991-2, when Charlie Gibson and John McQuade starred, scored the single best Dumbarton team goal I can remember. Cowdenbeath had just equalised in a crucial top of the table clash at Boghead. From the kick-off the ball circulated round the team in a great passing move before, over a minute later, and without an opposition player touching the ball, John McQuade planted it in the net. Promotion was secured on the penultimate day of the season as Cowdenbeath and Alloa, the other contenders, both one point behind, only had each other to play. The Championship was duly sealed in a draw with Arbroath.

League reconstruction (as in 1922!) saw us demoted for 1994-5, placed in the new third tier. With Murdo McLeod as manager the side needed to win at Stirling – who themselves only needed to draw with us – in the last game to be promoted as runners-up. A 2-0 win sent Dumbarton fans into delirium. What happened in the next three seasons, though, was dire. Two successive relegations, including a period of over a year when we did not win a single game, ended up with us bottom of the whole pile in 1998. The following four seemingly endless years of Division 3 football saw our tenure at Boghead, at the time the longest occupancy of a single site in British football, come to an end. In this forum, though, I’d better not dwell on the result of the final game there.

Another runners-up promotion swiftly arrived in 2002. The prolific if frustrating Paddy Flannery (77 goals for the club in 175 games) was the spearhead of that side, with the less heralded Andy Brown a willing side-kick. The promotion hero, though, was goalkeeper John Wight who saved a penalty in the last minute of the last game to make sure we could not be overtaken.

For me, though, the one that sends the memory banks into raptures is 1972. That year it all came together. The club’s centenary season, 50 years since top flight football, the town’s 900th anniversary of Royal Burgh status. Kenny Wilson had an astonishing 38 goals in 36 league games, some of them in vital 1-0 wins. Mid-season he made it onto the scoresheet in a record twelve consecutive matches, and he scored all five in a 5-0 rout of Raith Rovers. And that 38 doesn’t include the free-kicks and penalties he won for Charlie Gallacher to bang in. But big Roy McCormack scored the peach. At Love Street on Christmas Day 1971 he walloped a volley from out near the touchline about fifteen yards into St Mirren’s half. It flew over the keeper’s head, hit the stanchion full on and bounced out beyond the penalty spot. It was astounding. The ref thought it had hit the bar but the linesman gave it. Roy thumped two others not quite so good in the games either side against Alloa the previous week and Clydebank the next. Sweet, sweet.

Other highlights are Jumbo Muir’s waltz all the way from our penalty area through half of the Clyde team at Shawfield before finally putting the ball in the net, Lee Sharp’s belter at Almondvale in 1996, the 5-2 win at Tynecastle in 1982* against a Hearts side desperate for promotion (we were up the park three times in the second half and scored each one) and the 0-0 draw in 1970 in the League Cup semi-final against the Celtic team that made the European Cup Final that season. The replay was 2-2, then in extra time a (Lou Macari?) cross was flagged by the linesman as out of play until Wilson headed it in. The flag mysteriously went down. (Bitter? Me? No. It’s only been forty one years.) We did have a bit of revenge. Celtic had scored another and started to play keep-ball. When we got it back we played keep-ball too. Except we suddenly switched to a quick passing move up the left, put in a great cross and scored. In subsequent seasons we had 3-3 and 2-2 draws at Parkhead in the league. After our second equaliser in the latter of those the ref was looking round desperately for someone to give him a reason to chalk it off. The linesman didn’t help that time.

Yet the real emotion wasn’t for these or any promotion. Somehow the crucial last day relegation avoiders in 1973, 4-1 against Dundee Utd, and 2003, 4-1 again, Raith the victims, have meant much, much more. Perhaps it’s the release of the fear that makes sure it’s so. The hope fulfilled. We non-glory hunters who follow lower league sides don’t get that very often.

Addendum:-
*It seems I have misremembered this game slightly. Big Rab’s blog a week or so ago featured a newspaper clipping which says we were 2-1 down at half time that day. So we were up the park not 3, but 4 times in the second half; and scored each one. Even better.

In his afterword to the article the programme editor says that in addition to being a long-term Sons fan, “Jack Deighton lives in Kirkcaldy and has taught in Cowdenbeath and Dunfermline. Jack knows all about pain.”

A friend of mine who was born in the town let me know an amazing statistic about Arbroath.

It seems that Arbroath FC’s title win on Saturday is the first time they have ever won a Division.

This is astonishing since thay have played in the upper echelons of Scottish football fairly often and indeed for many a long year had never finished below sixth in the old Second Division (the two Division era) which meant never worse than 24^th in Scotland.

You’d think – I did think – that in all their 133 year history (including their famous 36-0 win against Bon Accord) they had managed to win a league before but all their promotions have come as a result of finishing second (yes, I remember 1972) or winning the play-offs.

Congratulations to the Red Lichties. (It’s about time!)

On a stranger note, and also at a Scottish football ground on Saturday, we have the behaviour of Dunfermline Athletic mascot Sammy the Tammy before the crunch match with local rivals Raith Rovers.

Sammy marched out dressed in a cardboard tank and proceeded to make sweeping gestures with his “gun” in the direction of the massed ranks of Raith supporters. These were accompanied by the sound of machine guns from the club’s PA system! A You Tube video can be watched here. Unfortunately the sound quality is inconclusive as regards the machine gun noises.

The police have interviewed “Sammy” but will take the matter no further.

I am left wondering what the reaction would have been had a similar incident occurred at an Old Firm game….