Dumbarton FC’s administrators have given an update on the status of the process.

It seems they have identified a preferred bidder.

This is not quite the good news it may appear as in effect if this goes ahead the club would still be under the ownership of the same company which was in charge when it went into admin – a company moreover not interested in being in charge of a football club but only in the land on which the ground sits as a site for house building. (The fact that the land is not actually suitable for building houses on being neither here nor there apparently.)

And what is to prevent Pendragon Group from further running down the club after the administrators hand it back?

Since the creditors are to be paid in full the administrators will have done their duty to see the best deal for them but a settlement like this is not in the best interests of the club for the future.

Minor Art Deco style, Wallace Street, Dumbarton:-

I can’t ever have walked down Wallace Street before as I don’t remember seeing this building until this visit in April.

Doorway detail:-

I had seen this one many times: the former Co-op on the corner of Greenhead and Glasgow Roads. The date above the lintel is 1922, a bit early for true deco:-

We also took a stroll along the quay in the town and spotted this children’s slide (chute) in the shape of an elephant, with a wooden play elephant behind. An elephant appears on the crest of the town and of the mighty Sons, Dumbarton FC. It’s a nice nod to that heritage to have these play objects reflect it:-

The Dumbarton FC website today contained the sad news that Sons’ great striker from the 1970/71 and 1971/72 seasons, and club legend, Kenny Wilson has died.

He scored 67 goals in his short time at the club including 38 in 36 league games in that memorable promotion season of 1971/72 and 4 in the top division the year after before he moved to Carlisle. He and Roy McCormack were the most potent striking partnership I have ever seen. Just sublime.

I noted part of Kenny’s contribution to our promotion in this post. In a later league game against Raith Rovers he scored all 5 in a 5-0 win. One of those he knew little about. He was standing with his back to goal a few yards out and the ball bounced off the back of his foot and over the line. When you’re hot, you’re hot.

My elder brother dubbed him “rubber legs” due to the way he collapsed when tackled illegally. He won more than a few penalties and free-kicks converted by Charlie Gallagher in those two seasons.

In a pre-season friendly against Carlisle United Kenny scored a cracker I always remember as the “£10,000 goal.” Before the game Carlisle were rumoured to be interested in signing him and willing to pay £10,000 as a transfer fee. When Kenny joined them a few months later they paid £20,000.

Sadly his career after he left the Sons was not as successful in terms of goals scored.

He returned to visit Boghead and the Dumbarton Football Stadium (the Rock) often in the years after he retired from football and always had time to spare for the fans.

And so another part of my youth has gone.

Kenneth Malcolm (Kenny) Wilson: 15/9/1946 – 17/01/2025. So it goes.

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:-