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:-

More from Dumbarton FC’s 150th Anniversary Exhibition.

Boghead was home to the Sons for 121 years. As well as featuring Boghead this board mentioned earlier grounds:-

Boghead’s later days and new stadium at The Rock:-

Temas from the 1880s – 1920s:-

1922 Bergen trip team and others from later in the Twentieth Century:-

On display at the Dumbarton FC 150^th anniversary Exhibition were the then current home and away strips which I featured here.

Home:-

Away:-

Murdo McLeod’s strip from when he was DFC’s player-manager. Plus a programme from a St Bernard’s vs Dumbarton match and a DFC statement of accounts:-

There was also a board displaying Sons’ strips from the club’s original blue and white through black and gold, a brief foray into black and white, before the restoration of black and gold (with occasional white) up to the present day.  These can also be seen on the historical football kits website:-

Fixture flyer from 1984-1985, the club’s most recent season in Scottish football’s top flight, showing the nearly all-white strip worn then:-

The photos in this post were taken at the Dumbarton FC 150^th anniversary Exhibition held in Dumbarton Library towards the end of last year.

The club’s biggest achievement was in being overall Champions of Scotland twice – shared with Rangers in 1891 and won outright the following season. See to the right of photo below:-

The rest of that information board relates to minor trophies, Charity Cups and the Stirlingshire Cup.  I took two photos of it since the angle wasn’t great for getting the whole board in:-

The Dunbartonshire Charity Cup was on display:-

As was the Dumbartonshire Cup:-

The club won the Scottish Cup in 1883 and is one of the few whose names are on the actual trophy as opposed to plinths below it:-

The Festival of Britain (St Mungo) Quaich was won in 1951. The picture below shows the Quaich and one of the mugs presented to the winning players:-

Festival of Britain Quaich inscription:-

The Scottish Football League Second Division Trophy (1972):-

Dumbarton FC, the Sons of the Rock,  became 150 years old in December 2022. To mark the occasion various events were held over the year and a special set of strips was worn for the season.

There was also an exhibition held in Dumbarton Library featuring items from the club’s history. We visited it in November.

Letter of congratulation to Dumbarton FC from A J Cronin + Division 2 Winners Medal 1971-2:-

Scottish Football League Second Division Championship Flag 1992 plus a winner’s medal for that campaign and ticket for the first game at The Rock in December 2000 :-

Scottish Football League Third Divison Flag Toggle 2009 and season tickets for 1972-3 and 2001-2:-

Football Cards, Medals and Photo of Pavilion at Boghead, Dumbarton’s former ground :-

Postcards of Boghead, football cards and medal:-

Share Certificate, coasters and Civic Reception tickets:-

!884-5 season ticket, ticket for first floodlit game at Boghead and club badges:-

Letter to J F Donovan and more coasters:-

Parts from Boghead turnstile:-