Scottish Cup, 3^rd Round, The Rock, 3/11/12.

Well. A win’s a win – even if it is in the Cup. Our record in cups (the Stirlingshire version apart) hasn’t been too good for an awfully long time.

The comments on the Pie Shop say it wasn’t convincing. Given our persistent failure to win in Div 1 that’s not altogether surprising but at least this has shown that we can beat a team.

I don’t know whether to hope for a big team at their place in the next round to get in some money or for someone else we might be able to beat.

Onwards (and upwards?) to Cowdenbeath on Saturday first, though.

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.

SFL Div 2, The Rock, 21/4/12

I wasn’t at the game but this was a potentially important result. Had we lost we were in real danger of not finishing in a play-off spot. As it is one, more win from two remaining will secure third place. Possibly even a draw might do depending on results elsewhere.

Since our ten game unbeaten run we had hit a bit of a slump and only one of our players (Craig Dargo at Cowdenbeath) had scored for us in six games since the 3^rd of March! Our other two counters in that time were opposition own goals.

The result yesterday was all the more commendable since we fell behind early in the second half.

It is still possible for us to finish as low as sixth despite two of the teams in the next three playing each other next week (especially given our poor goal difference) but we would need to have a calamitous last two games.

We could relegate Stirling Albion next Saturday so they’ll be up for a scrap. Brechin (at home on 5^th May) ought to have nothing to play for, though.

We could even lose our last two games and still finish 3^rd.

In this Division, where anybody can beat anybody, you just never know.

Home of Cowdenbeath FC.

It’s fair to say Central Park has seen better days. There is talk of a new stadium being built, though.

Here are the entrance turnstiles.

Just beyond the turnstiles you can turn right towards the main stand or ascend the steps to the terracing. Just by the steps is a memorial stone (see right, below) which I first noticed on Saturday.

At the top of the steps you get a view of the main stand – with stock car in the foreground.

As well as football, Central Park also hosts stock car racing as witnessed by the tyres as barriers and the wide expanse between the stand and the pitch. On a Saturday the racers start to turn up (revving engines and such behind the stand) midway through the football game’s second half.

This is the (uncovered, you’ll note) south terracing, not a good place to stand when it’s raining. Saturday was fine, though.

Here are two photos of the stand side taken from the south terracing:-

The fans are well back from the playing surface – and fenced off from it; but that’s due to the stock cars.

A couple more photos are on my flickr.

A few months ago someone posted a documentary video about Central Park on You Tube. I’ve not watched it all – it’s 18 minutes long and must have been filmed in summer, or colour enhanced – but at 1 min 35 seconds in you can see an old building up behind the stand. That building has since been demolished but I started my teaching career there in the 1980s.

When The Sun Shines
Documentary on Central Park, Cowdenbeath.

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.

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.)

The lead story on the lunchtime BBC news today (18/2/12) concerned Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. There followed some guy (from the Armed Services Institute?) talking about the ramifications of that on the likes of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, etc as regards proliferation.

The second story on the guardian‘s front page was headlined US believes strike on Iran is inevitable later this year.

Looks like Cowdenbeath are a banker for the Division 2 title this year, then. (With a side order of Armageddon.)

Seriously, though. What are these guys on? Remember Mr Irresponsible during the 2010 General Election campaign? It seems now like that was a prediction rather than an idle slip of the tongue.

How can I put this?

Iran poses no threat whatsoever to the UK. Still less does it pose a threat to the US. I’ll give you it may be a (possible) threat to Israel but its posture there may be rhetorical rather than real. However, there is no way it could invade either the UK or US; nor could it overthrow their governments.

And if it is in the process of acquiring nuclear weapons why might that be?

It has seen its neighbour, Iraq, attacked, on the flimsiest of pretexts, mainly by the US and the UK – and thereafter thoroughly destabilised. It does not want the same happening to it. It knows Israel has nuclear weapons almost certainly targeted on it; it also knows North Korea has such a “deterrent” and is treated more carefully as a result. In its mind developing nuclear weapons might be a rational response to its current circumstances. We (the UK, along with the US) have a history of interfering with the region that goes back a long way. If I were them I wouldn’t trust us either.

The ratcheting up of the Iranian situation reminds me of the run-up to the (second) Iraq war. Drip by drip of increasingly ludicrous assertions. (A much heightened version of this sort of thing was evident in the German press in the summer of 1939.)

I don’t much go for the idea that we could be the bad guys but, in the absence of any attack by Iran on us (or, at a push, Israel) that would be the case here; as it was in Iraq.

Moreover, and again as with Iraq, it would be thoroughly counterproductive.

The ramifications of an attack on Iran would only confirm the idea that the “West” sees Muslims as a whole as targets and though it would take time might make recent terrorist attacks seem like a garden party. Any occupation of Iran would make our involvement in Iraq seem like a picnic and Vietnam a cakewalk.

Do we really want that?

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.”

For what it’s worth I’ll be voting for a change to the alternative vote in the referendum tomorrow.

Not that I think it’s a perfect system, there isn’t one – and there’s not a snowball’s chance that anyone but Labour will win in my parliamentary constituency, Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, anyway, under any system – but simply that it’s a (tiny) bit fairer than the so-called first past the post method which I have blogged about before.

[To see just how perverse the FPTP system can be see doctorvee’s excellent post on the subject here.]

I also see AV as an essential first step towards a more fully proportional election procedure. Consider: the coming of universal suffrage in the UK took nearly 100 years from the Great Reform Act of 1832 till women finally got the vote on the same terms as men – and one person one vote was not achieved (with the abolition of university seats) till after the Second World War!

If the AV referendum posts a no vote it will be taken to mean that, or represented as, there is not a wide desire to see a fairer system in place and the chances of any sort of PR system for UK parliamentary elections will thereby be lost for perhaps a generation, maybe even for my lifetime. Anyone who votes against it on the grounds that it isn’t the PR system they prefer is letting the worst (FPTP) take the place of the acceptable-for-now.