This photo appeared on the DFC website on Christmas Eve. I don’t know when it was taken as it doesn’t often snow in Dumbarton, it being on the confluence of two rivers, but it looks lovely.

SPFL Tier 3, Links Park, 21/12/24.

A welcome win – all the better for us being without our main two front players and first choice goalkeeper. I was more than a bit nervy, though, watching the results show after they got one back with about ten minutes to go. Still, we held on for the draw.

Finlay Gray did us the honours scoring both goals at what is not often a happy hunting ground for us.

We’re now at the dizzy heights of four points.

Sons fan Robert Ryan (also known as Big Rab) has been in various bands over the years and has performed pre-match in the bar area at The Rock on occasion. He also composes songs.

His latest composition is in response to the recent administration event at our beloved Dumbarton FC. I’ve had a listen and it’s not bad. (Translation note: in Scotland the description “not bad” is a commendation.)

The song is called Stand Up For The Sons and is on sale here.

The proceeds will go directly to the Sons GoFundMe campaign.

I saw this picture posted on a friend’s Facebook page a while back, and now I’ve shamelessly appropriated it. Superb.

Dumbarton FC Stadium and Dumbarton Rock:-

A Sons gofundme page has been set up to help the club survive administration.

All monies raised will go only towards player and staff wages and the club’s ongoing running costs. None will go to the club’s owners or shareholders or be spent on professional service fees.

Expletive deleted! Expletive deleted! Expletive deleted!

Yesterday was a sad day for Dumbarton FC. Its affairs have been put into administration.

But it’s not liquidation; so the club survives for the moment.

However administration is an expensive business and does carry with it an SPFL punishment of an immediate deduction of 15 points meaning we lose the 15 we’d gained so far this season so are now back to zero. There’s also the loss of the club’s bronze playing licence (which I think is restored some time after coming through administration) and a 5 point deduction for next season.

While the financial situation at the club has been iffy at best for a while the true problem has been the murky circumstances of the club’s majority shareholder, who has been involved in dubious activities with previous companies (and whose interest in the club lay solely in trying to make money from it by selling the land it stands on for building houses.)

It also seems that payments due to the club from another of his companies have not been made so precipitating the crisis.

It is to be hoped that the administrators can sort out the club’s problems and that said present majority shareholder will never darken its doors – or that of any other football club – again.

My thoughts are all over the place, though. This is not something I ever saw happening in the dim distant past when I became a Sons supporter.

The Christmas present of a jigsaw I blogged about here has now been completed. It shows Boghead Park, former home of the mighty Sons of the Rock, Dumbarton FC. Completing it was a fine nostalgia trip for me.

Starting out:-

Pitch just about completed:-

Surprisingly the hardest part to complete was the crowd in the foreground:-

My younger son is married to a girl from Rochdale and travelled down there for Christmas. Unfortunately his present to me got mixed in with the Rochdale ones. Hence I did not receive this lovely surprise till the New Year had arrived. A 1000 piece jigsaw depicting Boghead Park, home of the mighty Sons of the Rock for well over a hundred years.

Slightly belated but nevertheless very welcome.

(We currently have a different jigsaw on the go so this one will be on the back burner for a while.)

SPFL Tier 4, the Rock, 23/12/23.

I was at this but haven’t got round to writing about it since I had a big birthday at the weekend and there was of course Christmas.

Clyde must have won the toss as they chose to change ends – no doubt to utilise the wind. It and the driving rain were atrocious throughout.

We started OK but soon fell out of it as Clyde were aided by the conditions. Harry Broun, in goal due to Brett Long’s long-term injury, had to face a one-on-one early on and manged to put the attacker off enough for the shot to go past the post.  Then we were awarded a penalty though no-one near where I was sitting had a clue what for. Handball most likely. Tony Wallace converted.

Harry Broun stood up to another one-on-one, blocking the shot. Our goal was leading a charmed life through a series of corners where the ball was being driven towards the goal by the wind but the equaliser came from an attacked cutting inside and hitting a shot from outside the box. Maybe Broun was unsighted but it looked potentially savable; but the shot shild never have been allowed.

We took the lead again when an Aron Lynas cross was deflected and looped over the keeper. But it didn’t last. Once again an attacker was allowed to cut towards goal and the despairing lunge caught his leg. Penalty to Clyde. 2-2.

I was having kittens every time they went up the park and especially at corners. The ball was somehow scrambled away several times. I was glad to get to half-time still level.

The second half was different. We basically controlled it without ever threatening their goal much. Sub Ryan Wallace livened things up a bit though and scored with a header from a cross.

A stramash from a corner led to Aron Lynas hitting the bar and then heading in our fourth.

That ought to have been it. 4-2 up and with the wind in our favour there ought to have been no way back for Clyde. But one of our party’s number then fatally said, “I wonder when was the last time we won 4-2 two games in  a row.” I pointed out there was still time, but that was because I was hoping for a fifth.

That didn’t happen. Their subs up front made a difference. Had we not had a scratch defence (a regular centre half plus a right back out and our usual left back shuffled to centre back for the game meant we missed our normal drive from the full back positions) then we might have coped. As it was their lad got free and fairly blasted the ball through Harry Broun. The strike was so ferocious and the conditions so poor but it was still a surprise he could have scored from the angle he had.

Clyde then sensed the draw and threw everything forward. Again our normal defence might have stopped their third equaliser. By that time it seemed almost inevitable they would score but it was still a poor one to lose.

That was a chance to catch Peterhead, who lost at home, and keep pace with Stenhousemuir spurned. The league is most likely gone now, even with just over half the season to go.

Yet more from Dumbarton FC’s 150th Anniversary Exhibition.

Notable former players from before my time:-

I don’t remember John Rowan. Hughie Gallacher was the star of of the late 1950s Sons side which came close to promotion. He’s still top scorer for DFC. John Hosie was the club’s Secretary for donkeys’ years. Robert Robertson was the chairman who was in place when the Sons regained their place in the top flight of Scottish football in 1972. Johnny Graham was a brilliant midfield maestro and holds the record for most appearances for the club:-

Chairman Robertson features in this caricature of Dumbarton worthies:-

Daily Record record of 1926 Scottish Cup Tie. Dumbarton 1-1 Buckie Thistle:-

The replay involved a marathon midweek journey and was followed by Sons’ biggest ever defeat:-

Ephemera. I have one of those 1991 -92 Second Division Championship mugs:-