SPFL Tier 2, The Rock, 4/1/14.

This’ll do. Two points at home,* a clean sheet and now fifteen points ahead of the bottom club with 17 games left. Debutant loanee Chris Kane got on the score sheet too and it seems Colin Rhyming Slang provided the cross for it. Plus it restored the gap with Cowdenbeath to two wins and took us above Queen of the South.

It’s not secure yet by any means. Cowden can haul us back in again next week at their place. A draw wouldn’t be bad for us, a win would be magic.

*Edited to add: Did anyone spot the error? When I was a lad it was two points, now of course it’s three for a win.

SPFL Tier 2, Dens Park, 28/12/13.

To be expected against the league leaders, I suppose – especially when we do not have a good record at Dens. I should have gone;* it’s very travellable for me but my son who lives nearby and would have made a great excuse for a Saturday afternoon trip to Dundee is away on holiday and I couldn’t face the thought of high winds (which were howling about Kirkcaldy this morning.)

Ah well. Given Cowden and Morton both lost not much harm done – except to the goal difference. Our next two games are against those two though and are big ones for us.

*Edited to add:-
Maybe it’s as well I didn’t. We seem to have had the ball over the line at 0-0 but neither the ref nor linesman gave it, even Dundee fans thought it was in apparently. If I’d been at the game I’d have been livid.

That’s the second game against Dundee this season the officials have maybe cost us.

SPFL Tier 2, The Rock, 7/12/13.

Well, Iain Russell didn’t fail it seems.

I have my doubts about us playing Wed-Sat. Tue-Sat gives more recocery time. I gather Ian Murray wants Wednesdays but the team is more likely to be jaded with the shorter break.

At least Morton and Cowdenbeath didn’t make ground on us, though Livingston and Queens both did.

Three games against teams at the top of the table coming up. Could be a rough December.

SFL Tier 2, Cappielow Park, 9/11/13

Not good. Morton’s first win since day one. Why did it have to be against us? Also no goal for. That’s two league games in a row now.

At least all the other teams below us lost.

Livingston away next week has become a very important one.

SPFL Tier 2, The Rock, 26/10/13

First clean sheet*, first time we’ve failed to score.

It keeps us a win ahead of Cowdenbeath and put more space between ourselves and Morton.

Pity two other teams below us won though.

*Edited to add:- apart from the Albion Rovers game in the League Cup in August.

SPFL Tier 2, The Rock, 25/8/13

Well.

We don’t normally do league wins in August.

Having said that, it was only two seasons ago we humped East Fife 6-0 at their place on the 27^th (making up for the reverse score the year before.)

But this’ll do nicely.

The two new signings last week, Colin Nish and Hugh Murray, ought to add experience and know-how.

So far the only teams we’ve dropped points against are first and second!

Let’s keep it up at Cowdenbeath and Alloa now, two potentially tricky away games.

SP Hell.

I see the proposals for a reconstruction of the Scottish football leagues have advanced to the point they are now to be voted on.

I haven’t commented up to now as I’ve been resigned to gloom all season. The 4-3 at Falkirk and 3-0 at Morton did cheer me up, though.

The proposals would see a merger of the SPL and SFL with a top league of 12 clubs (as now; so no change at all!) The second tier will also have 12 clubs (an enlargement of 2.) The third tier will have 18 clubs (effectively a merger of Divs 2 and 3 of the SFL minus 2 clubs.) The fourth tier disappears (but there is a mooting of introducing relegation to/promotion from a pyramid below it.)

There is in addition to be a “split” after the top two Divs have played 22 games (home and away against each other) with the 24 clubs divided into three sections of 8,8 and 8 where again there will be home and away games against each member.

There is an air of indecent haste about this as it seems to be envisaged that this will start in season 2013-2014. That would mean changing the finishing post halfway through this season (and also effectively kybosh the play-offs for this year.)

As far as the top two “new” Divisions is concerned how is this different in essence from the SPL 2 which was shot down in flames about a year ago?

And I wonder how many promotion/relegation places will there be between the third and the second. Not enough I would suggest.

It all sounds to me remarkably like a way to hike Rangers up to tier 2 a year early. They will undoubtedly win Div 3 this season and I can see the argument running that they won their league; so deserve to be promoted. The Div 2 winners (Queen of the South?) would be going up to the second tier anyway.

In this regard it would be nice to have Rangers saying that if their promotion to the second tier in one go was advocated they would refuse to accept it – but I can’t see them making that refusal: even if they have described the plans as an abomination.

By all means have a merged league – provided there are equal voting rights across the Divisions. (Otherwise how long will it be before the top two Divisions vote away the lower completely?)

Very few fans, however, want to keep the present system where clubs play each other 4 times a season. The proposals do not really address this point. Under them 20 clubs will still be doing exactly that.*

The main trouble is that Rangers and Celtic are too dominant within the Scottish game. I have frequently said that unless and until the gate income is once again shared between the two competing clubs, along with more equal division of TV monies, no other club will have a hope in hell of challenging the big two.

I do know one thing though. Whatever and whenever league reconstruction happens Dumbarton will be demoted. That’s what always happens.

1922: third bottom Div 1. Three clubs relegated to adjust division sizes. Previously only two clubs had been relegated. It took us 50 years to get back up.

1975 : fifth bottom Div 1. Only the top 10 clubs stayed in the first tier. It only took us 8 years to get up to that level (for a brief one season visit.)

1994 : fifth bottom Div 1. Three Divisions rearranged to four, bottom five in Div 1 demoted to new Div 2. Promotion the next year saw us then have our worst season in living memory (and beyond) before tumbling down the leagues. 16 long years later we finally got back to Div 1.

Demoted
Under
Materiallly
Biased
Arbitrary
Regulation
Thrice
Over
Now

*Edited to add. The 24 “top” clubs will all play four times against at least three teams.

SFL Div 1, Cappielow Park, 2/1/13

What?

WHAT?

Two wins in a row?

And a clean sheet? Against the league leaders?

Did someone give Ian Murray a magic wand for Christmas?

Seriously, though. Well done, Sons.

Let’s take this into home form now.

SFL Div 1, The Rock, 27/10/12.

That’s it.

There has been no “new” manager bounce. We’re doomed.

It was excruciating watching this on the videoprinter on Sportscene which I came in on just as we went ahead 3-2.

This was the game we really had to win if we were to have any hope of avoiding relegation. Failure to do so means we have in the last two minutes of both of the relevant games lost five points to the two teams directly above us – after being two goals up in both. Those two teams being the ones we ought to have had most hope of plundering points from ourselves.

I suppose it’s only natural that players will tend to try to protect what they have in situations like that, especially in our precarious position, but it so often backfires.

In retrospect, we have been relegated early before. In August the last time we were in Div 1 in fact. I remember an article in “The Absolute Game” saying a funny thing happened at half time in our first match (at Greenock, against Morton.) “We got relegated.”

This season it came in August again – at the very scene of our play-off final triumph a mere few months earlier – when we collapsed to a 4-1 defeat against today’s opponents in the opening league game.

The main reason for our plight is that we cannot defend. This was always likely to be a problem given that we finished last season on a goal difference of precisely zero. The players brought in over the close season haven’t improved that any. The midfield can’t seem to protect them either. And the attackers don’t get enough of the ball.

At this rate we may be in danger of not beating East Stirlingshire, a team two Divisions below us, in the Cup next week.

History may be about to repeat itself. Confidence will surely take too many knocks between now and May and carry over into Div 2 next season with the prospect of relegation twice in a row looming again. (With the season after that finishing complete bottom of the pile?)

Yet another round of alphabet soup in Scottish football. Not only is the League Cup now to be called the Communities Cup but apparently the Challenge Cup (in which Dumbarton have the worst record of any of the teams which have ever competed for it; so don’t look for progress beyond the first round this time either) is now to be known as the Ramsden’s Cup.

Ramsden’s apparently have a presence in a lot of towns with SFL clubs and peddle financial services such as pawn-broking and payday loans.

Hmm. Not much of an inspiration, is it?

It’s East Stirlingshire, by the way, at home on 23^rd July.

What? No Morton?