SPFL Tier Three Play-off Final, Second Leg, Ainslie Park, 17/5/24.

I’m still processing this.

For so long this season promotion looked a long way off, but seven wins out of the last eight games in the last quarter gave us momentum and in the play-offs themselves the team handled the situation perfectly.

Mind you after three minutes of this one I had that familiar sinking feeling. I knew as soon as the cross was hit a goal was coming. And so it was.

Thank goodness we got back into it quickly so that there was no possibility of nerves getting the better of us. Jinky Hilton’s corner was well met by Sean Crighton and – not for the first time at Ainslie Park this season – their keeper spilled it. I didn’t see who scored. I was on the grass banking behind the goal near the corner flag and Ainslie Park is tight and does not have good sight lines when there’s a big crowd. Only when I got home did I find out it was Michael Ruth.

From them on the first half was quite dour with Jay Hogarth having only one save to make and their keeper not much troubled either. The most worrying thing was Sean Crighton having to go off injured. Aron Lynas has played at centre half for us before though he’s really a right back but up against the foot taller Blair Henderson I feared for him. Yet despite losing their first mutual challenge easily he pretty much handled him relatively easily. 1-1 at half time and a nervous 45 minutes (plus) beckoned.

We came out better than Spartans in the second half. First Finlay Gray hit the post after good work by Kalvin Orsi and Michael Ruth. I wondered if we’d rue that not going in. But then Michael Ruth stood up to be counted. A brilliant first touch near the halfway line saw him set off on a run at their defence. He cut inside and then placed a shot back across the goal, leaving the keeper stranded. Superb stuff.

Only once did Spartans threaten our goal but a combination of a defender (Cian Newbery?) and Jay Hogarth forced their player wide and it went out for a goal kick. Then they were given a penalty in stoppage time. I was too far away to see what had happened for it to be given. As it turned out there was too little time for Spartans to capitalise on their equaliser.

The final whistle nevertheless still came as a relief .

So now 2024 joins 1972, 1984, 1992, 1995, 2002, 2009 and 2012 as promotion seasons I have witnessed.

Even if Mark Durnan has been a defensive rock since he came back from injury it was fitting that Michael Ruth secured promotion for us. Throughout the season he has been our best player.

SPFL Tier Three 3 Play-off, Semi-Final, second leg, Forthbank Stadium, 11/5/24.

Like water torture. This was indeed a long 90+ minutes.

Albion looked a side lacking in confidence, not surprising when you slide into a relegation play-off spot.

In the first half they only threatened our goal once, after a bit of ping-pong in the box following a corner. Jay Hogarth saved the first effort but when the rebound was played across goal their attacker air-kicked a sitter.

We ought to have scored when a great move culminated with Div Wilson going for the near post but just shaving it into the side net. (Just for a moment it seemed he had scored.)

In the second half Albion came out to throw everything at it even going to three at the back. As a result our midfield was overrun at times but Jay Hogarth never really had a save to make. One shot did hit the post but that was it.

We had a few counter-attacking forays but tended to overcarry the ball when a pass was on (Kalvin Orsi and Finlay Gray I’m looking at you) or else players strayed offside so we never put the tie to bed. (Curiously, the linesmen flagged at the earliest opportunity, something which is very rare these days.) Michael Ruth was again superb up front but never got the clear chance his hold-up and general play deserved.

The final whistle was more of a relief than anything else even though Stirling never looked like scoring.

So it’s on to the Rock on Tuesday evening for the first leg of the Play-off Final against The Spartans then to Ainslie Park (of ill memory but also great memory) on Friday.

SPFL Tier 3 Play-off, Semi-final, First leg, The Rock, 07/04/24.

A pretty nerve-racking 90+ minutes all in all.

Unlike in the past two seasons’ play-offs we came out of the blocks quickly. Kalvin Orsi and Carlo Pignatiello were all over their left hand side and it was from their combination that Orsi put over a cross for Jinky Hilton to bury. We really ought to have gone on from there.

However, an attempted clearance by their left back bounced up onto his hand and fell for him to pass it up the wing. When their forward cut in I just knew he was going to score and he did indeed put it past Jay Hogarth’s right hand at the near post. Hogarth went down like the proverbial sack of potatoes. Were we too busy waiting on the handball call? (As I undertood the rules any touching of the ball by an attacker’s hand in the lead-up to a goal counted as handball. But who knows the handball laws these days?) Whatever, Manager Stevie Farrell was booked for his protest.

The first half from then on was a slog, noticeable only for Finlay Gray twice being chopped down – once off the ball which the ref and both linos completely missed, though the other was punished by a yellow card – and Kalvin Orsi suffering a set of studs high on his leg – an incident also somehow missed by the officials.

The second was also a slog. Towards the end James Graham came on and injected a bit of pace which resulted in a penalty being awarded to us. I was too far away to tell if it was justified. Comments on Pie & Bovril suggest it was. Whatever, the ref perhaps owed us one.

Tony Wallace kept his cool through the Stirling keeper’s almost Emiliano Martinez levels of sh**housery and out it away.

So, a slender lead to take into Saturday’s second leg at Forthbank.

Another nervy 90 (or even 120) minutes no doubt.

Spfl Tier 4, The Rock, 27/4/24.

We started this quite well with Kalvin Orsi and Carlo Pignatiello tearing up their left hand side. One such foray saw a great cross onto Michael Ruth’s head but he somehow managed to skew it over the bar.

Then Elgin began to come into it and some comic defending, a missed header and poor marking, left their player alone  ust outside the six-yard box and he squeezed it in.

Jay Hogarth didn’t look comfortable at all, he fails to command his box. Their second came from a free header from a corner. 0-2. At this point it was all Elgin. A long-range shot clattered our bar. If it had gone in the game would have been over.

As it was a carbon copy Orsi, Pignatiello combination again saw the ball home in on Michael Ruth’s head. No mistake this time. 1-2 half-time.

The second half was not uneventful but not inspiring. Twice Jay Hogarth was exposed in a one-on-one and both times made the save. Good at these and shot-stopping it’s a pity about his box-commanding.

Flurries of substitutions didn’t much affect the game but James Graham got himself some space in the area to use his feet to get a shot past their keeper. 2-2. As it finished.

So one game to go before the normal season ends and on to our now traditional humping in the play-off semi-final.

SPFL Tier 4, New Bayview, 11/11/23.

This is only the second time this season I have watched the mighty Sons of the Rock in action. But East Fife’s ground is only 7 or so miles away from where I live so it seemed only right to turn up.

We survived an early scare when Tony Wallace headed the ball but straight to an East Fife attacker for a one-on-one only for Brett Long in our goal to bail him out.

A minute or so later we took the lead a ball into the box reached Kalvin Orsi who poked it home for his first goal in 784 days.

Thereafter we kind of fell out of it for a while with East Fife knocking the ball about quite well but never really threatening. Then we had a spell where we had four great chances in about three minutes but East Fife’s keeper made one good and one magnificent save and there was a great last minute block to prevent us scoring again. We did get the ball in the net once more but it was chalked off for offside.

The second half was fairly uneventful. Our final balls were just a bit off. East Fife barely looked like scoring except for when Brett Long misjudged a situation, coming for a ball he was never going to get, and was left stranded. Enough defenders got back though to prevent a goal.

The fact that their keeper got their man of the match award kind of sums things up.

I must say Michael Ruth’s centre forward play was superb. He held up the ball and played others in. Sadly he didn’t get enough of the ball in the box to be able to score.We also had players actually showing for the ball at throw-ins. That is not the Dumbarton way.

The ref made some odd decisions. Par for the course these days.

Up front for East Fife Nathan Austin was a shadow of the player he used to be.

SPFL Tier 3 Play-off, Galabank, 9/5/23.

Well. What do you say about a shambles like this?

Except: so much for a record number of clean sheets.

That’s not any good when your defence falls apart in the games that matter.

It was bad enough being two goals down in 24 minutes but Kalvin Orsi’s sending-off only made it worse.

A season that had seemed a relative success (when did we last end up with a positive goal difference?) has ended in embarrassment.

Saturday’s second leg is now the deadest of dead rubbers.

Good luck to Annan in the play-off final.

SPFL Tier 4, Forthbank, 25/3/23.

Well what an odd experience that was.

Despite our scudding last weekend and them on a roll what with going top by two points in midweek, this had a Stirling win all over it.

Yet still, I went to the game and, pre-match, had a pretty good feeling about it.

There was a pretty good turn out of Dumbarton fans too and the players seemed to appreciate it.

That good feeling almost evaporated after two minutes when Greg Buchanan was handed a yellow card for absolutely nothing. A couple of minutes or so after that it was Finlay Gray’s turn to see yellow. He seemed to me genuinely to have been fouled at the edge of the box.

Then a few minutes later Ross Maclean was shoved in the back in retaliation by one of their defenders when the ball was dead – right in front of the ref. No card – of any colour. Then Brett Long was shown yellow for time-wasting. He was trying to get the match ball after a ball boy had thrown him a substitute. Ross Maclean also got a yellow in the first half. I was thinking we would be lucky to end up with even nine men on the pitch. To contrast this Ally Love got an elbow to his face – play on. Gregg Wylde got caught by a dangerously high Stirling boot – again play on.

Somehow in all this we managed to score. Peter Grant had brought a save from their keeper from a corner but the goal was from open play, a Kalvin Orsi cross headed back across the keeper by Ross MacLean. It looked to me an easier save than the one he had made.

Their goal came from a corner (following a corner.) It looked to me like the the ball had gone out off one of their players. But the subsequent header was uncontested.

The ref wasn’t so egregious in the second half. The talk was all that someone (the supervisor perhaps) had had a word with him. If he’d carried on in the second half like he did in the first there would certainly have been fewer bodies on the pitch at the end. He did finally start wielding yellows to Stirling players but he couldn’t avoid it the fouls were so blatant.

Our second was a blast from Finlay Gray after Stirling hadn’t cleared their lines.

Despite having a bit more possession Stirling created very little from open play. That their second equaliser came from a corner following a corner (great block by Greg Buchanan) was severely disappointing. It was a carbon copy of their first.

Still what could have been a five point deficit is only two.

I only hope we have a few more players to call on soon than we had for this one. We were down to only five subs on the bench and Kalvin Orsi’s injury towards the end looked a sore one.

SPFL Tier 3 Play-off, Semi-Final, Second Leg, The Rock, 7/5/22.

We needed an early goal to have any hope of putting the wind up them. Needless to say it wasn’t forthcoming.

The first half was pretty much nothing. And, criminally, no urgency on our part .

A quadruple substitution early in the second half brightened us up and brought a goal from a Kalvin Orsi cross and Kris Syvertsen’s head.

The great comeback on?

No. This is Dumbarton, vintage 2022.

It would only ever have taken one goal to down us. And it did. Three minutes after ours. Our defence parted like theatre curtains. No-one put in a challenge to stop their player getting his shot away.

Mind you, it had been coming. They had had several efforts on target thwarted by Kieran Wright or else squandered.

But the damage had been done in the first leg – and all through the season.

So our centenary year will be spent in the bottom tier of the top league in Scotland.

Even if that’s been our natural habitat for most of my life there’s now an air of doom about the club that has never been there before. The murkiness of the club’s ownership is a constant threat and contributed greatly to our recent woes.

I dread to think where we’ll spend the season after next.

If we still exist.

Expletive deleted.

SPFL Tier 3 Play-off, Semi-Final, First Leg, Ainslie Park, 03/05/22.

Calamity.

Shambles.

Disgrace.

Choose your own noun.

Whichever, this was a come-uppance that has been coming all season.

We weren’t the worse team in the first half; indeed we had several opportunities to put in good crosses, notably from Ross MacLean, but the delivery was never acceptable enough except when Conner Duthie put one over for Josh Oyinsan to head. Josh’s angle was slightly wrong and the ball just cleared the bar. That would have made it 1-1 and might have changed the game.

But our perennial ability to shoot ourselves in the foot manifested itself when George Stanger underhit a back-pass and Kieran Wright couldn’t prevent the forward getting past him to be presented with an open goal.

Their second was also an abject disaster, a corner somehow not being cleared and the ball going in off Gregor Buchanan. At that point any thought of winning this tie all but disappeared.

Mind you, if we had approached the start of the first half the way we did the second things might have been different. For the first twenty minutes we were all over them, creating space down the flanks and getting crosses in. It was two odd substitutions though with Kris Syvertsen who had looked as if he might create something and big Josh (who admittedly wasn’t at his best) being replaced by Kalvin Orsi and Callum Wilson. At this point Paul Paton was bossing the game from the base of midfield and it was his cross that was looped over the keeper from the edge of the box for our goal. Young Callum did his best, twisting and turning past defenders several times, but nobody was able to be calm enough to finish off his work.

Their third killed it. Another defensive mix-up and a reasonable save from Keiran Wright was followed by a failure to clear the ball which fell to a guy who couldn’t miss.

At 2-1 and with us on top there was the possibility of getting an equaliser but that goal knocked us back. 3-1 was always going to be a different prospect.

The final nail in the coffin with minutes to go – another short pass back latched on to by the home attack – just completed the humiliation.

The thought of watching the second leg was by then almost unbearable.

So; unless some sort of miracle happens on Saturday we now know where we’ll be playing next season; Tier 4.

Who knows where we’ll be the season after that?

The club is in deep trouble on and off the park. It’s its 150^th anniversary later this year. What a sorry state it’s in to greet that.

Profound change is required.

SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 11/9/21.

Wow!

What a contrast to the last few seasons.

This was our biggest league win for ten years. (Curiously that one was also against East Fife, 6-0 at their place in our last promotion season.)

Mind you there wasn’t much sign of it in the early stages where both teams didn’t threaten much. But then we got a free-kick which was flighted in by Connor Duthie and headed towards goal by Ryan McGeever. It looked to be going wide but ex-Son Scott Gallacher in the Fife goal palmed it out straight to Ross MacLean who gleefully stuck it away.

For a spell towards the end of the half East Fife had a lot of possession but their best – their only – chance came from a free-kick. Sam Ramsbottam looked beaten but the ball crashed off the bar and out.

Just before half-time a Callum Wilson corner saw Gregor Buchanan get a free header yards out. 2-0.

Things meandered round for a bit second half but we put the game to bed when another Callum Wilson delivery was met by Buchanan again despite the attentions of the defence.

Two more goals from set-pieces gave the result a welcome gloss, Ryan McGeever was left all alone in the box to put away Kalvin Orsi’s knock-back from a long corner before Eoghan Stokes headed in from a beautiful delivery from fellow sub Joe McKee following a short corner to him.

If you can be churlish about a five-nil victory here comes the churl. We didn’t score from open play. Indeed we didn’t create a chance from open play except for Ross MacLean’s dribble and shot from a narrow angle which hit the post.

That’s curmudgeonly though. It was such a delight to watch a Sons second half performance with absolutely no trepidation.

They won’t all be like this though.

Falkirk away next week. I never thought we’d be heading there next Saturday above them in the table. (Even if it is only on goal difference.)