SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 8/3/25.

Another defeat.All the more painful for the goal being conceded in stoppage time.

That’s six in a row now. It doesn’t help when the manager is playing selection bingo to give all the players game time. Just put your best team on the pitch. (Mind you he probably doesn’t know what his best team is.)

And it won’t get any better. We’re away to league leaders Arbroath next Saturday.

I know we won there last time out but that was a rarity. And we were in a fairly good place then, while they weren’t.

SPFL Tier 3, Caledonian Stadium, 04/01/25.

Back to business as usual.

Another game which we really had to win if there were to be any chance of avoiding relegation this year (there isn’t; but we can still dream) and so another loss.

From the comments on Pie and Bovril it seems we were never at the races here, not helped by the manager’s team selection.

Can we hope for better against the league leaders this Saturday? The head suggests not – but it did that when we up to their place in October and we won.

SPFL Tier 3, Ochilview, 7/12/24.

I hadn’t expected much from this since both of our front two Michael Ruth and Jinky Hilton were missing through injury but I didn’t contemplate this disaster.

We were two down in 25 minutes and then to compound our problems Finlay Gray was sent off just before half time. As if that wasn’t enough Brett Long joined him in the dressing room on 70 minutes after another red card. And with Carlo Pingatiello going off injured as well …..

To cap it all Inverness Caley won and Annan got a draw marooning us further away from any hope of making 9^th place never mind 8th.

Not that I was too hopeful of staying up anyway but failure to win at home against Annan next Saturday will just about doom us.

SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 26/10/24.

Two wins in a row! Great.

And against a barrage of media interest in our opposition, all but egging them on.

Their story could have gone two ways today after their administration on Monday and subsequent fifteen point deduction. Either it could have galvanised them or else they could have continued stumbling along as they have been this season.

Two from Jinky Hilton and a single from Ryan Blair did for them, though.

So we’re now second bottom (I note we would still have gone above ICT even without their fifteen point penalty) but we’re only five points off top spot. It’s a crazy division.

We’re at home to the league leaders next week. It doesn’t get easy.

SPFL Tier 3, Caledonian Stadium, 2/8/24.

A good enough start to the league season I suppose. I don’t remember us even getting a point up there before.

Only time will tell if it was a good point.

I wasn’t there of course.

One of the things that happened while I was away was the draw for the group stage of the League Cup (apparently now called the Viaplay Cup.)

We play Airdrieonians, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Bonnyrigg Rose and Dundee, the first and last away, the other two at home.

I suppose we’ll be out of contention after two games as usual.

Scotland’s Football Grounds in the Black and White Era, D C Thomson Media, 2018, 257 p. With a foreword by Chick Young.

Annfield, Bayview, Boghead, Brockville, Broomfield, Cathkin Park, Douglas Park, Firs Park, Love Street, Muirton, New Kilbowie, Shawfield, Telford Street, Kingsmills. Names to conjure with – and all gone to dust (or housing, or supermarkets.)

To Scottish football fans of a certain age (which I am) this book is a magnificent nostalgia fest. It features 41 of the historic grounds of the present day SPFL football clubs, plus two more, Shielfield (at time of publishing Berwick Rangers were still in the SPFL,) and Firs Park. The only ones missing are Peterhead’s former ground at Recreation Park and Annan Athletic’s Galabank. The criterion for inclusion in the book was that a photograph had not been widely published before or else illustrated some quirk of the ground concerned. (I was somewhat disappointed that only one photo of Boghead, former home of the mighty Sons of the Rock, appears; but I have my own memories to savour.) And of course for Inverness Caledonian Thistle you get two former grounds, Telford Street and Kingsmills. In the course of following the Sons I have visited most of the stadia here in their heydays, excepting only those belonging to the ex-Highland League clubs (though I have walked past Telford Street Park several times and even been to Clachnacuddin’s Grant Street Park in Inverness for a game – a pre-season friendly they played against East Fife; in 1976, while I was in the town.) I have frequented many over the years since.

The book is a delightful celebration of the history of the beautiful game in Scotland – and also a memorial to what has been lost. Cathkin apart, all of the grounds on the list above have been replaced by bright(ish) new(ish) stadia but most of those have yet to invoke the glories of these now mouldered (Cathkin again) or vanished (most of the rest) temples to Scotland’s abiding sporting obsession. With only one exception, Hampden, the book tends not to delve as far back as pre-World War 2, hence the absence of even longer gone grounds such as the Gymnasium, home to St Bernard’s FC, of which photographs would in any case be vanishingly scarce.

There is a 1930s, Art Decoish-looking, building in the pictures of Shawfield that I don’t remember from my only visit there and which I assume was demolished years ago. My favourite old ground, Firs Park, is shown in the days before that huge concrete wall was erected at one end to stop the ball going on to the access road to the retail park beside the ground; before, even, the office building that overlooked that end of the park in the 1970s. That other redolent relic, Cliftonhill, is shown lying in a natural bowl perfect for siting a football stadium.

The text is studded with various titbits of arcane information. Glasgow had at one time three of the biggest football grounds in the world in Hampden, Celtic Park and Ibrox. And there were plans to extend Shawfield’s capacity to add to that list of superstadia. The world’s first penalty kick was awarded against Airdrieonians (away at Royal Albert in a charity Cup match) and was scored by a James McLuggage. (Not from a penalty spot, that had yet to be invented; from any point along a line twelve yards from goal.) A WW2 pillbox was constructed at Borough Briggs with slit windows/gun ports all round (those sly Germans could after all have attacked from any direction) and remained in place till Elgin City joined the SFL in 2000. It was Ochilview which hosted the first ever floodlit match in Scotland. Falkirk once held the world record for the highest transfer fee and Brockville was the venue for the first televised floodlit game. Rugby Park used to be ‘mown’ by a resident sheep – three in total over the years. Hampden’s square goal posts now reside in St Etienne’s museum as they were held by that club to be responsible for their defeat at the hands of Bayern Munich in the European Cup Final of 1976 since two of their team’s efforts rebounded out from the goal frame instead of scraping over the line. Les poteaux carres is still used as a phrase for bad luck in the city.

Attending football matches is no longer as economical as it was back in the day. One photo shows a 20p entrance fee at Firhill in 1970. After inflation that 20p would equate to £3 in 2018. Try getting into even a non-league ground for that now! Some things definitely were better in the good old days.

Pedant’s corner:- “the current club were established” (was established,) “the club were on the up” (the club was) sprung (sprang, x2.)

SPFL Tier 2, The Rock, 18/4/18.

Well the game made no material difference since Tuesday night’s result at St Mirren meant we couldn’t avoid ninth but it’s still disappointing that Dumbarton nil struck again.

Not encouraging for the last two league games and the play-offs.

And we started with a few players who have mostly been on the bench in the recent past and so shouldn’t have been too tired.

Gloom abounds.

Even if by some miracle we manage to stay up, next season is going to be a bigger struggle.

(I suspect that it’ll also be a struggle if we go down.)

SPFL Tier 2, Tulloch Caledonian Stadium, 14/4/18.

We started the game well enough, scored the opener – Andy Stirling skinning his man and cutting the ball back beautifully for Grant Gallacher to thump it into the net – but we didn’t hold on to it long enough. The equaliser was a great strike, but the guy took the ball up in midfield with no-one near him and no-one closing him down.

If we’d held on till half-time maybe things might have been different, but just before the break Craig Barr inexplicably switched off and didn’t chase the ball allowing Nathan Austin in to round Scott Gallacher and roll it into the net.

In the second half we fell right out of it and they started to walk through us. We looked tired. I suppose, as I always suspected they would, games have caught up with us. It’s not really a surprise to me that our first bad winter in this division has coincided with our worst performance in it. And the postponements due to the Challenge Cup run haven’t helped.

The introduction of Liam Burt and Mark Stewart improved us – why wasn’t Burt on from the start? He always looked capable of fashioning something and Mark Stewart was a bigger threat than Calum Gallagher had been – but we were three and four down by the time the subs were made.

At least we looked a bit of a goal threat for the early part of the game. The play-offs might be a stretch too far though.

Scottish Challenge Cup (Irn Bru Cup) Final, McDiarmid Park, 24/3/18.

I’m a bit deflated at the moment as I’m sure you can imagine. Football can be such a cruel game.

I made the fatal mistake of beginning to hope when Scott Gallacher made the penalty save with about seven minutes to go. But to lose it in the last gasp of injury time was harsh; especially on the players who’d worked so hard.

We had the better of the early exchanges, ranking up several corners (I can’t remember them getting even one in the whole game) and having a shot on target without really troubling the keeper. More worryingly they came into it towards half-time by which time the on target count had become 2-2.

They had more of the second half and did make Scott Gallacher handle the ball a few times. The nearest we came was with a Danny Handling shot which the keeper held. I noticed today that Handling has a terrible habit of turning back with the ball. Who was it back in the day who did that all the time. Paul Quinn? Robert Russell? Not Russell I think, much further back than him.

After his debut for Cyprus yesterday (the Sons’ first full international player since 1932) Froxy came on as a late sub but it was too late for him to affect the game much. The only free-kick he could attempt was from way too far out even for him.

Here’s a photo of my match ticket:-

Before entering the stand I took a few photos of the ground as it’s the first time I’ve been there. Through a frosted glass window I caught Sons’ manager Stevie Aitken in the dressing room probably trying to get a signal on his phone:-

I’m proud of the lads, they did well. But I’m gutted – for them and for me.

They’ll need to raise themselves for Tuesday night’s game now. At least most of the players who were unavailable for today should be in the squad.

This cup run has probably ruined our league season what with all the postponements. We don’t have a midweek free now until the last week of the season.

But when will be the next time Sons are in a national Cup Final?