The memorial is in Hope Paton Park. View from side:-

The memorial is a bronze figure of Victory standing on a ball above a stone pedestal, with supplementary pillars. Memorial bench to front:-

Reverse view:-

Great War Dedication. Bronze plaque inscribed, “To the glory of God and in sacred memory of those belonging to Montrose who gave their lives in a great cause 1914 – 1919”:-

Great War Names, A Adam to R Falconer:-

D Fawns to A McKenzie:-

F McKenzie to J Young:-

There are names on both sides of the pillars dedicated to World War 2.

Commemorating the dead from 1939, 1940 and 1941:-

Commemorating the dead from 1941 (continued) and 1942:-

Commemorating those fallen in 1943 and 1944:-

Commemorating the dead from 1944 (continued,) 1945 and 1946:-

Links Park is the home of Montrose FC. Its entrance is at the end of Wellington Street, just off a park with the same name as the ground:-

Southwest Corner:-

Stand from southwest:-

West Terracing:-

Links Park from northwest corner, showing main stand:-

From northeast corner:-

Stand from northeast corner:-

Stand:-

Stand from southeast corner:-

West and north terracing from southeast corner:-

A thirties pair of semi-detacheds near to Links Park. Pity its windows have been replaced. Typical 1930s style otherwise.

Frontage:-

From left:-

SPFL Tier 3, Links Park, 15/2/20.

I was about to report that we’d failed to score – again – but then PJ Crossan got one back in injury time. So that’s three for this year so far – and two of those were in the one game.

At least nobody below us won.

Our next two games, at home to Forfar and Clyde, are real must-not-lose affairs if we’re not to be drawn into the relegation equation.

SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 8/2/20.

Not a win, but not a defeat either. A clean sheet is welcome too.

And we’ve nudged four points ahead of Peterhead with the same no of games played.

Next week against Montrose at their place is going to be tricky. I’d take a point now, but fear worse.

What the football gods give, the football gods take away.

We won 2-1 at their place earlier and were hanging on a bit towards the end. Since then they have really hit form so I wasn’t really surprised by this result which means they have leapfrogged us so we’re back down to sixth.

That makes next week at Forfar a must not lose.

I was up at Montrose again last summer and wandered the town centre a bit further coming across these three buildings. The middle block here may be 1950s but the left one has the Art Deco style:-

That left-hand one has Critall style upper windows, still. The marble effect round the shop windows with the geometric line design also has the look:-

This is entrance to the Ladbroke’s I pictured in my first Montrose Art Deco post. Lovely Art Deco detailing here:-

Maryton is a very small village on the A 934 just to the west of Montrose and south of Montrose Basin. The Memorial is inscribed with the words, “In grateful memory of the men who fell in the wars 1914-1918. Their name liveth for evermore. 1939-1945.”

I spotted it while I was passing through the village en route elsewhere.

There is a school memorial lying right next to Maryton War memorial but laid into a wall. It is inscribed, “In proud and grateful memory of the boys of this school who died for their country in the war 1914-1919.”
Below the names are the words, “Glorious their fate, splendid their doom, their time an altar. Honour them, weep not, give them praise, not pity.”

SPFL Tier 3, Glebe Park, 12/1/19.

I’ve the feeling we’re doomed.

This was a mustn’t lose.

We lost it.

That we ought not to have lost it is neither here nor there. If we can lose to a team as abject as Brechin things are beyond bad.

Okay, extenuating circumstances, we had only three subs on the bench – only two outfield ones and only one of those actually fit to play. Plus Michael Paton was drafted in to right back and Cammy Ballantyne shifted to the left to cover for the absence of Willie Dyer.

It was Paton who made the day much harder than it needed to be when he dived in to bring down an attacker when he’d already been booked. Down to ten men was going to make the win all but impossible. (Not that his first booking was much of one but you don’t dive in when you’ve had it.) I must say the ref was reluctant to wield the yellow card to any of the home defenders making loan signing Ben Armour’s debut a trial. Armour was himself booked before any of his tormentors was. His substitution by Brad Spencer near the end might have been to try to make sure the ref wasn’t tempted to give him a second too. By the time the ref did start booking Brechin players it was too late and he spread the cards around.

The odd thing was we looked a better attacking force after the sending-off than before – possibly due to Cammy Ballantyne being on his natural side of the pitch. But I was always aware we were short of numbers whenever Brechin counter-attacked.

We were the better team throughout in any case – even if we didn’t actually threaten their goal much. Their keeper made a great save from an Andy Dowie header from a corner to stop us taking the lead. (Dowie, it seems, was making his last appearance for us, his new day job commitments meaning his availability isn’t guaranteed. That leaves us with the sum total of zero centre backs available for the Montrose game in a fortnight – unless long-term absentee Craig Barr recovers in time for that. Or some other miracle occurs.)

We kept them out reasonably well till injury time when we began to look a tiny bit ragged. The goal though, from a corner we couldn’t clear, scrambled in with the second last kick of the game (the last was the kick-off which followed) was cruel in the extreme. The players (the ten still on the pitch anyway) didn’t deserve that. It’s the sort of thing that happens to a team on whom Lady Luck has turned her back – compare our late winner in the first game at the Glebe last season when Brechin were the sufferers.)

By my count that’s four points we’ve dropped on this ground this season. We ought to have had three in the first game and at least one here. But combine that with the six Brechin gained from the two games and we could have been more than comfortably ahead of them. As it is we’re not.

And we’re down below the bare bones now.

This season feels like revenge karma for the good times in the tier above for so long. I hope something turns up before January ends or we could be staring down the barrel of a second successive relegation and that could be a disaster for the club as the rot might not stop there.

This looks like it was once a Woolworths:-

This one’s now a Clinton’s:-

And this is a Ladbroke’s:-

The glazing on the Ladbroke’s is good:-