SPFL Tier 3, Recreation Park*, 2/4/22.

What a shock.

We scored. Our first in almost five games.

We scored three.

We won! (For the first time in seven games.) It’s almost certainly too late though.

I “watched” the second half on the BBC Scotland results show. It was 0-0 for so long. All the while Peterhead were in control in their game so our wnning was an absolute must. Then Alloa scored in about 82 minutes. Game over, I thought.

Imagine my surprise when it came up about three minutes later that we’d scored a penalty. Even more so when it was Conner Duthie who scored it. Carsy has been our penalty taker all season. It seems he’d been subbed for Eoghan Stokes though.

Imagine my even greater surprise when Duthie scored again two minutes after that.

However, I just knew they’d equalise. It’s what we do. Not much surprise when it was a pen. Our record of giving them away this season is beyond a joke. 90^th minute it said. At that point I’d have taken a draw even though it was useless to us.

Utter disbelief ensued when I saw Alloa 2-3 Dum on the left upper screen graphic. Then it came up on the videoprinter, scorer Kristoffer Syvertsen. Amazing.

So no goals for over 80 minutes then five in the last ten or so.

It seems from Pie and Bovril we looked like we were playing for a draw for most of the game. Maybe we should try attacking from the start.

Peterhead at home next week. Lose that and it’s ninth at best for us. We have the top two away in the two games following that. Nul points from them I should think.

This game was notable in another way. It’s the first time the Sons have been refereed by a woman, Lorraine Watson to be precise.

*Indodrill Stadium only if you must.

SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 26/3/22

Well, it wasn’t a defeat, we didn’t lose a goal inside the first five minutes and we ended up with a clean sheet. It could be termed progress.

But we needed a win. Especially since Peterhead beat Falkirk so we’re now four points behind them. And it’s four games in a row now without scoring.

We’re just sleepwalking into relegation.

It could have been different. Yes, we didn’t threaten much in the first half (we didn’t threaten at all) but were reasonably comfortable.

We ought to have scored in the second when a fine Carlo Pignatiello run saw him unselfishly draw the ball back to Paul Paton in front of an open goal but he scuffed his shot miserably.

A minute or so later they were awarded a penalty which looked to be curtains for us. However Kieran Wright in goal made a very good save. It’s his first clean sheet for us. How he must have longed to have a defence in front of him.

Another plus point was Josh Oyinsan’s return. He gives us presence up front but isn’t fully match fit I would say.

Whether or not the appearance as a sub by the long-injured (and long unseen) Kristoffer Syvertsen is a plus was difficult to tell. He again probably isn’t match fit and didn’t do much in his minutes on the pitch to say if he’s an asset or merely a body.

We have five games left, two of them against the top two away. There’s no way we’re pulling this out of the bag.

SPFL Tier 3, New Bayview, 12/3/22.

From bad to worse.

A win would have put us above Peterhead and almost certainly doomed East Fife. As it is we are on a doom slide – 3 points out of our last 15 while they are on the opposite trajectory (8 out of the last 15.) Now they are only 3 points below us, and our next two games look daunting while theirs don’t.

We seem to continue to shoot ourselves in the foot. Losing a goal in the first few minutes (again) and having a man sent off (again) even if this one was only in stoppage time. Still, Carsy ought to have known better.

The home games we have left I’ll need to watch through my fingers.

SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 19/2/22.

Oh dear.

I could say the pitch cost us this. It was in a dreadful state and the winning goal came as a direct result of it when the ball bobbled as loanee goalkeeper Kieran Wright was attempting a clearance from a back pass. The result was a sclaff onto which the Alloa player latched. Despite Kieran forcing him wide (and doing well to avoid conceding a penalty) he managed to score from a very narrow angle. With 7 minutes to go that was us more or less dead.

Alloa, though, were the better team all game, seeming to be able to surmount the conditions and actually pass the ball. They exploited our left a lot and that was where their opener came from.

We came into it towards the end of the first half and the equaliser, a great strike from Paul Paton, was deserved at the time.

I thought that we would keep forcing it in the second half but it was Alloa who started to dominate the game. Even so but for that sclaff it might have been us who stole it. We did pile on pressure near the end with a succession of corners but couldn’t get any efforts on target or through the thicket of defensive bodies.

This is beginning to look very like a relegation season. Incidents like the sclaff tend to happen to doomed teams. Ominously, East Fife have picked up since we beat them.

Peterhead away next Saturday is a must win. A draw will not be enough.

SPFL Tier 3, Broadwood Stadium, 12/2/22.

Well, that was much needed, but by all acoounts Clyde were rubbish.

Still, a win’s a win and not to be sniffed at.

And it was done without big Josh Oyinsan up top. (Pulled hamstring apparently.)

I wasn’t at the game and haven’t seen any higlights yet but it seems Carsy scored from open play! Our other two came from Ross MacLean.

And we’re up to the heady heights of seventh.

Mind you, Peterhead may be two places below us but they’ve got two games in hand.

Next Saturday against Alloa (in eighth) at home is a potential big one.

SPFL Tier 3, Firhill Stadium, 8/2/22.

Well. This was disappointing. Even if Carsy did manage to put away our (and his) fifth penalty of the season.

I know Queen’s have already beaten us 3-0 twice this season but given our recent improvement and the fact that they are the division’s draw specialists I had hoped for something more. Getting too greedy I suppose.

A draw would have put us level on points with Peterhead, and a win two places up the table, above Alloa.

Not to be, sadly.

We really must get something from Saturday’s game at Broadwood now.

This post’s title is the perennial cry of the lesser spotted Scottish football fan.

However, Saturday’s Scottish Cup game against Dundee largely hinged on a red card being shown to Ross MacLean for violent conduct as a frsult of which we played the whole second half with only ten men.

This red card has now been rescinded.

How we might have fared with a full complement on the park is of course unknowable. But given we pushed Dundee fairly hard with only ten men it’s a reasonable assumption that we could have done even better with eleven on the pitch.

The ref has perhaps cost us a place in the next round – and the revenue that would bring – and a possibly lucrative draw in that round (though Dundee got Peterhead away – a tie which could have been negotiated by us into a quarter-final.) We were punished for an offence that in effect never happened. He was seemingly due to be fourth official at a Tier 1 game tonight and is due to do the same at another on Saturday. It doesn’t seem equable.

SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 18/12/21,

I’m seriously depressed now.

That’s us won 1, drawn 3 and lost 5 at home this season. Just dreadful. Compare that with won 4, lost 5 away from home, though.

But it’s individual errors that are costing us for the most part.

We started slowly but came into it and managed to score from our first ‘proper’ (ie floated as opposed to driven in at knee height) corner, Andy Geggan heading in at the back post. (Not that I actually saw it; the fog was so bad that the Pixellot camera on the stream coudn’t follow the ball.)

We couldn’t hold on to it, though. An inexplicable failure to make any challenges in midfield left Sam Muir exposed down our left and the guy ran on to put it under Sam Ramsbottom.

Amazingly we didn’t fall out of it at once. instead a great run by Sam Muir saw his cross missed by everybody except Conner Duthie at the back post (near post to the camera’s view.) Again I didn’t see it but it seems his finish was composed.

Could we hold on?

No.

Sam Ramsbottom’s mistake this time, failing to control a back pass and making a foul for the penalty or so the commentary said. Sam saved it but the rebound fell to the taker. 2-2.

Our best hope at half-time was probably for a postponement as the visibility was even worse in the second half due to the sun going down. The floodlight glare on the stream all but obliterated the view at either end of the pitch. But the ref played on. And the Pixellot camera trained itself more or less consistently on the middle of the pitch – except when the nearside ballboy was juggling with a spare ball.

Andy Geggan again had the ball in the net from a Joe McKee free-kick but the assistant’s flag had gone up. How he managed to make out it was offside in the gloom goodness only knows.

That might have made a difference but it was all over when Peterhead scored after a corner. Again I didn’t see the goal and had to rely on the stream’s commentary – apparently the tallest guy on the pitch had been left unmarked.

That was game over, we don’t come back from deficits.

We’re seriously in trouble now.

The annoying thing is we can score. But we can’t defend. Not a recipe for success.

Queen’s Park away on Boxing Day. We’ve lost 3-0 to them twice already.

Not a happy Christmas then.

SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 11/12/21.

This all started quite well. We had the better of the first part of the game, even if Montrose looked tidy on the ball they didn’t threaten our goal. Eoghan Stokes put a header against the post from a narrow angle, Conner Duthie latched onto an exquisite pass from Andy Geggan, rounded the keeper and slotted it. The retreating defender could only put it in the net. Callum Wilson hit the bar from a corner.

Then the roof fell in. Paddy Boyle misjudged the bounce of the ball and his attempt to recover caught their attacker who tumbled to the ground. Penalty. No question. Then two minutes later they pulled our defence out of shape and had a man over on the left. Goal. Eoghan Stokes was through one on one just before half-time but the keeper narrowed the angle well and saved with his legs.

Again at the start of the second half we looked as if we might get back into it but the third goal killed it. Failure to challenge properly allowed the attacker to manœuvre the ball into a striking position. Game over.

It’s especially disappointing as we looked bright enough going forward when we passed the ball. We can only hope that a Ryan McGeever return might improve our defence (and provide an extra attacking threat on set pieces.)

Down to second bottom. Next Saturday’s game against Peterhead looks like a six pointer even this early. Lose it and I reckon we’re stuffed.

SPFL Tier 3, The Rock,6/11/21.

It was a mustn’t lose – and we didn’t lose.

However we ought to have won.

There were enough dangerous crosses etc for us to have got on the end of one of them and then there were two sitters; Paul Paton scooped one high and wide when he ought to have buried it, then he was through one on one but failed to get the ball past the keeper and Eoghan Stokes skied the rebound. That was really the only save their keeper had to make.

I had the fear when I realised how bad the wind was – I’m still traumatised by that game up at Peterhead – and for a long time this resembled those dreadful games we witnessed last season. We barely made an effort at shooting from range (Sam Ramsbottom had to make a good save from a wind-assisted one of theirs first half.)

Still a change of tack at a corner when Callum Wilson came on saw his driven cross deflected on and saw Eoghan Stokes burying it. That was on the cusp of injury time we ought to have held out.

So what happened?

They strolled up the park, got in a unopposed cross and two of them were queuing up to put it in. Two points dropped.

With not taking the chances we create and defending like that we’re in a relegation fight again.

All September’s optimism has gone.