Normally at this time on a Saturday I’m composing a post on how well Sons have done that day. (Or not as the case may be.)

I wonder when I’ll do that again.

It’s not even like a close season (a normal close season) when you know exactly when you can go to a game again. Football (lower league football, with crowds; without crowds is a total non-starter) will be one of the last things to return to normal. The risk with even small numbers of people in anything resembling close proximity for 90 minutes plus added time is just too great.

Still, the club seems to be looking ahead as it’s already planning what next season’s home strip will be. (There might not be a next season, of course.) None of the choices is very appealing. If not a white strip with black and gold trimmings/bands/stripes I wish we could at least have a black and gold strip, instead of yellow; but at our level beggars can’t be choosers and we can only go with what strip manufacturers offer.

The crowd funding campaign has reached over £18,000 but is still about £6,500 short of its target.

Worrying times.

In these dark days of no football and nothing to light up (or darken) Saturday afternoons, thoughts can easily turn to gloom.

This is especially so since there is a real prospect that without an income stream for what would have been the remainder of the season many clubs – Sons included – could struggle to survive.

In a generous gesture the staff and players have already agreed to defer half the wages they were due, which will go some way to ease the financial pressures on the club.

However that was always unlikely to be enough. To enable fans to play a part in (with hope) tiding the club over scary times, a crowdfunding page has been set up for them – and others – to contribute towards helping Dumbarton FC as a club through a difficult time.

Yes, I have already donated.

Scottish Cup* Fourth Round, Pittodrie Stadium, 18/1/20.

Once again, we wuz robbed.

After Sons had held out for 87 minutes Aberdeen’s striker Sam Cosgrove went over like a sack of spuds in the penalty box. (Well, he’d been falling over every time a Sons player came near him all game so why would he give up the habit with three minutes to go?) Once again the ref bought it. And Cosgrove put away the penalty.

So, despite not a shot on target and only one corner won in the whole game – and that almost into stoppage time – one of the best Sons displays in the last few years ended up without reward. Defensively we were brilliant. Okay maybe they had thirteen or so chances – but they only caused Conor Brennan in our goal to exert himself about three times.

This Aberdeen side was a pale shadow of the team we played in the Cup Quarter-Final (six years ago now,) ponderous, unimaginative, plodding, but we’re not even a patch on what we were back then (as I said to my son during the game we’re not even a darn on that side) so this was a magnificent performance. It deserved better reward than a dodgy penalty against with three minutes to go. But them’s the breaks when you’re a wee team.

Again the assembled Sons fans trotted out those old favourites “What a shitey home support,” “We forgot that you were here,” “SPL, you’re having a laugh,” (admittedly that one’s really out of date now) and “You only sing when you’re winning.” Instead of Jamie Langfield it was that same Sam Cosgrove who was told, “you’re a wanker, you’re a wanker.”

Notwithstanding the final result it was a great day out. That sense of togetherness in the away section and the support for the team were both superb.

*William Hill Scottish Cup,

SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 14/9/19.

I wasn’t at this game – I was away in fact, on a trip down south, but it sounds like we ought to have scored at least once and many folks were convinced we had the ball over the line just before half-time.

From the SonsTV footage it looks as if the ball might have crossed the line but from the angle it’s impossible to tell for sure. The still photo on the club’s match report makes it look not in but the keeper had possibly clawed it back by the time the shutter released.

Otherwise the game looked pretty even. At their goal Conor Brennan again seemed to flap at the ball from a corner kick and got nowhere near it. Such is life.

The league fixtures for next season are now on the club’s website.

It looks fairly tough already.

Given we only have ten players signed at the moment – one of whom seems to be permanently crocked and two being goalkeepers – it may be even tougher come the actual games.

Well. It’s been a season.

Not the one we’d hoped for, but also not the one that for a long time I feared.

Today’s 3-0 win at home to East Fife, combined with Brechin’s loss at Stranraer and Stenhousemuir’s at home to Forfar means we can not be relegated. There is even an outside possibility we could finish as high as fifth if we win our last two games, but I’d suggest that’s an unlikely scenario.

Where we would have ended up without our four wins against East Fife I dread to think. It’s a seriously odd statistic that we beat them four times this season when we lost to Brechin twice at their place and also twice to Stenhousemuir. Still, that’s what a league is all about.

A stress-free last two games of the season await but memories of Dom Thomas apart, this has been one to forget, really.

I don’t suppose it’ll be long before I get to worrying again, though. July is only three months away.

SPFL Tier 3, Station Park, 13/4/19.

The scoreline tells you all you need to know about this game.

Sometimes you get an entertaining 0-0 draw. Sometimes you don’t. Today we didn’t.

The nearest we came to scoring was with long distance efforts by Ross Forbes and Dom Thomas but they were fired down the goalkeeper’s throat. Calum Gallagher had a couple such off target as did the two previously mentioned.

Not that Forfar were any better. Grant Adam only had two shots to save all day.

Mind you I’d feared the worst as just when the teams were coming out the announcer said that due to an injury in the warm-up Stuart Carswell was being replaced by Boris Melingui. Carsy is so important to our midfield. It’s really an obvious miss when he’s not there. The announcer still gave out Carsy’s name as playing when he read the teamsheets again at half-time, though.

Boris was up front with Calum Gallagher pulled back into midfield where he put a good shift in (he’s like a modern day Chissie*) but his attacking partnership with Dom Thomas was therefore missing. Boris ran about well and pressed with a will but there was no spark to our play. Dom Thomas had few opportunities to run with the ball, they doubled or trebled up on him at times and his control got away from him too often. Plus he needs to play folk in when they’re better placed.

Looking at this Forfar side I’m amazed they’re pushing Raith for second spot. They looked as bad as us, with very little in the way of creativity.

So it’s all squeezed up again at the bottom. We could have done without the wins for Stranraer and Stenhousemuir. We’re four clear of ninth and the dreaded relegation play-off spot with three to play but the bottom two play each other on the last day. The highest either of them could reach is 44 points. They could both reach 42. We’re on 39.

*Ian Chisholm, late of this parish.

Home of The New Saints of Oswestry Town & Llansantffraid Football Club aka The New Saints or TNS, once known as Total Network Solutions.

Scene of the most recent historical achievement of Dumbarton FC, the mighty Sons of the Rock.

Since The New Saints play in the Welsh Premier League this also counts as a Welsh Football ground.

The ground is more or less in the middle of nowhere, across the main road which by-passes the town of Oswestry and up a narrow unlit road. And it doesn’t have much in the way of dedicated parking spaces.

Entrance Gates:-

From southwest. The structure on this side is a TV camera platform.

Main Stand from southwest. The word stand isn’t really appropriate. The brick structure is more like a social club with a small balcony fronting onto the pitch. It doesn’t seem to have seats. The covered area to the left here does, though:-

Main stand and north terracing/stand from southwest:-

Stadium from main stand, showing TV platform:-

Pitch and TV platform from northeast:-

Pitch and East terracing from northeast:-

North Terracing/Stand:-

Camera platform from north:-

Main stand and covered terracing from north terracing:-

Teams Shake Hands, Irn Bru Cup Semi-final, Park Hall Stadium, Oswestry, Feb 2018:-

The name is enough to bring on a warm glow for any Sons fan, more so to one who was there that unforgettable night, shrouded now in mystic memory.

Not that it was an unalloyed delight. For three-quarters of the game we weren’t in it – and it was a pretty glum experience. I was wondering why I had travelled all that way only for us to surrender meekly. Still we weren’t exactly out of it, not even when The New Saints scored early on the second half. But we gradually started to push forward and even got a couple of crosses in.

Then the moment it all changed with that pass from Kyle Hutton to Danny Handling, the sublime run from Mark Stewart to take away the defender and leave space for the shot, the shot itself, the outburst of almost disbelieving delirium, Danny Handling running up the park in delight, Sons fans applauding and shouting with a kind of relief.

Then a few minutes later the ironic cheers when the referee finally gave a free-kick against their defence for fouling Christian Nade, who’d been getting no joy up till that point.

Up stepped Froxy with that beautiful, beautiful, sublime strike into Sons legend. If his goal at Dunfermline earlier that season hadn’t already made him one, this certainly confirmed it.

Below are the game’s (short) higlights – with Welsh commentary.

Watch Kyle Hutton’s reaction to Froxy’s goal (at about 2 minutes seven seconds in.) It looks like he’s thinking, “Did that just happen?”

Sometimes the football gods are with you, at others not. Pity the final wasn’t so memorable, but that was another story.

Oswestry, however, will stay with me forever.

I took photographs, naturally, of the ground and the town, all coming up.

And of course I have already posted the video of the celebrations at the final whistle.

2018 wasn’t a good year for Sons – Oswestry apart.

But I hadn’t realised how bad it was until I read this this statistical analysis of the playing year produced by a Sons fan on his “Tales From the Rock” blog and linked to on page 1610 of the “Sons Sorrow” thread on the Pie Shop, aka Pie and Bovril.

Played 55, Won 16,* Drawn 8, Lost 31, Goals for 60, Goals Against 104.

These stats show just why manager Stevie Aitken had to be binned.

There has been a small improvement under new manager Jim Duffy, but he is still labouring with the squad he inherited – a lot of whom seem to be injury prone.

*This count includes pre-season games against non-league opposition.