SFL Div 2, The Rock, 11/9/10

League goals for predictor:- 18.

I thought I’d conquered it. That I’d given this season up for dead. It’s been a fortnight since New Bayview after all.

But there it was at three this afternoon. That small wriggling worm of hope.

And finally getting round to checking the score at 4.40, the nagging worry.

1-0, but time not up. Stenny would equalise, or worse.

Then the sending off. Was it a penalty?

Agonising seconds waiting for the final score.

A WIN! Three points!

And a clean sheet. How on Earth did that happen?

We’re not even bottom of the table any more.

It seems Michael White was in goal. About time.

No Ben Gordon in the starting line-up. He’s been poor this season it has to be said. Maybe giving him the captaincy wasn’t a good idea. Was Chissie in central defence as this team list suggests?

The result is welcome but it’s not enough for me to change the goals for and against predictors though.

And since son number two now has a flat in Alloa, within walking distance of the ground, I’ll be there next Saturday.

(I would have gone anyway.)

Broadwood Stadium, 1/4/10.

We got exactly what we deserved from this. A doing.

In the absence of Chris Smith I warmed to him considerably.

Despite giving myself plenty of time I missed the first goal because the roadworks on the A 80 didn’t allow me to turn off at the A 73 as I had intended and I had to carry on, then double back though Condorrat.

I know nothing was riding on this but it verged on an embarassment. Defensively we were a shambles, it was beyond comic cuts at times. Vojáček in goal could have dealt better with the situations at Clyde’s 2^nd and 3^rd. All game he flapped at everything that came near him. Chappie implicitly admitted he’d got the team selection wrong by subbing two players about twenty minutes into the half. Unusually for him, though, it was the first half.

Ryan McStay oozed class – especially one drag-back in the second half. For about three seconds before he struck it for our first it was obvious from his body language what he intended. It still hit the bottom corner.

Their fourth was a great strike but the player who passed it to him handled in the build-up.

No complaints, though. We were well beaten.

To progress next season we need to improve our home form and do better against the teams at the bottom. Okay, we outdid Stenhousemuir but parity with Clyde, 3 points out of twelve against Arbroath, equal points but a worse goal difference v East Fife says it all.

I thought of Gordon Lennon during the match. Most games this season there hasn’t been time for that among the hurly-burly. Goodness knows what he would have made of this display.

The players stayed on the pitch at the end for some mutual applause with the fans. Recognition of the season’s efforts, not the day’s. I came away wondering how many of them I would see in a Dumbarton shirt again.

It’s going to be a long summer till July. What will I write about?

(I know there’s the World Cup but that’s not the same.)

Forthbank Stadium, 12/4/10

So: this result means Arbroath cannot better our points total. We have a ten goal advantage over them but if they were to beat us by say two on the 24^th it would make things tight. But Stenny and East Fife also play each other that day making it highly unlikely all three can get past us.

Still, we can make it arithmetically secure tonight by our own efforts against Clyde.

Why do I have a sinking feeling?

The Rock, 10/4/10

This was a successful season right here.

If we’d won today East Fife could not have overtaken us and we’d be absolutely safe from relegation.

As it is, the fact that Arbroath and Stenny both lost means only an almighty series of cataclysmic results for us would lead to the relegation play-offs but I’d have preferred we did it under our own steam.

We could on Tuesday night, of course.

But this is Dumbarton we’re talking about.

And it’s a home game. Our home form is crap.

Against the bottom club.

I’m not optimistic. (But I’d take three points.)

The Rock, 23/3/10

So. Two games against Stenny in ten days, two goals apiece and an equal share of six points. Better off than with two draws then.

Yet more midfield manoeuvrings, I see.

Now eleven points clear of ninth place albeit Arbroath are playing tonight. Dare I dream of safety?

Ochilview, 13/3/10

Normal service resumed. Happy hunting days at Ochilview over.

We were bright for the first ten minutes then fell out of it.

This was desperate. Two poor teams barely able to fashion a chance between them.

Our formation looked like 4-3-1-2 with Wyness in the hole behind Winters and Hunter but it morphed into 3-4-1-2 when we were going forward. We looked solid in midfield with Ross Clark and Andy Geggan anchoring things, and no Chaplain.

It hasn’t taken long, by the way, for Wyness and in particular Winters to descend to our level.

As time went by we resorted to hoofing the ball upfield. A masterly tactic when their defenders were winning everything in the air. This was made even more profound when Hunter and later Cook were replaced by midgets in Carcary and Murray. Murray and Dunlop did link up well down the left and as a result a great chance was created for Chaplain who had come on for Ross Clark. (Was he tiring? That’s the only reasonable excuse for such a change.) Chaplain blazed it over when it would have been easier to hit the target.

But of course we don’t keep clean sheets. Their sub scored with his second touch. He’d been left in acres of room.

The ref was woefully inconsistent in his decisions and stopped the game unnecessarily several times for injured players who promptly got up again.

Man of the match?

Chissie.

He barely put a foot wrong. If he’s not on the MOTM ballot for this game on the club website it’s a disgrace. He put in a great shift and saved the jerseys a few times. Their goal didn’t come from down his side either.

Due to work commitments I won’t be able to make Broadwood on Tuesday night. Probably just as well. Cowdenbeath on Saturday, though. Remind me. When did we last win there?

Ochilview, 7/11/09

It looks convincing and in the end it was, but I wouldn’t have believed this at the break as Stenhousemuir – wearing a peculiarly washed-out maroon, I thought – had much the better of the first half; though without troubling Dr Jan in goal very much.

Three minutes into the second half Roddy Hunter fashioned an opportunity for himself to shoot from outside the box and Stenny’s keeper didnt get down at all well. So much for Roddy being a penalty box player!

The second was a beauty of a move: a brilliant Stevie Murray back heel flick to Mick Dunlop whose sweet cross was headed almost perfectly by Roddy Hunter only to be parried by the keeper and Scott Chaplain was first to react to sweep it in.

We never looked in trouble after that and the third was fine too. Derek Carcary fended off a physical challenge by the defender, outpaced him and chipped the ball to Ross O’Donoghue’s head from where it met the pokey.

Roddy Hunter must like Ochilview. (At least this time he didn’t get sent off for nowt like in the Stirlingshire Cup final.)

Man of the match? Hard to choose. They all did well. The defence in first half, the whole team second. Chris Craig and Chissie just ran and ran and challenged all game. Chissie was booked for his challenge only because the ref had just yellow-carded a Stenny player for persistent fouling but nearly talked himself into a second yellow in the second half. The ref could have sent off Chris Smith and a Stenny player for a bit of handbags in the first half but kept the heid, gave them a talking to and so didn’t ruin the game.

Praise for a ref! What next?

Four away league games won on the trot! This is getting to be like the back end of last season. But we’re at the table toppers next.

Still, there’s daylight between us and seventh place now.

It’s getting scary. Like Onebrow (see comment here) I think we need to consolidate in this division before contemplating anything else.

Ochilview, 13/10/09

Hey! We’ve won a cup!

(Thanks to Big Rab for the comment about this but I had also been “watching” it on Pie And Bovril.)

It may be only the diddiest of wee diddy cups and a showcase for fringe players and under-19s and the like but it’s the first time we’ve won it in fourteen seasons.

It’ll be nice to have something else to jostle in the trophy cabinet with the 3rd Division Championship Trophy and the Festival Of Britain (or St Mungo) Quaich.

Last week I watched a TV programme fronted by Jonathan Meades which was an annotated travelogue through post-industrial Scotland. Meades’€™s starting point was the almost poetic litany of the names of Scottish football clubs as heard in the results on Saturday afternoons.

Unlike those from England, very few of whom have names that are geographically indeterminate, at least at first glance* (the exceptions are Arsenal, Aston Villa, Everton, Queen’s Park Rangers, Port Vale, Tranmere Rovers; at a pinch Crystal Palace) and most of which are relatively prosaic (Swindon Town, Derby County, Bristol City) – only Nottingham Forest, Sheffield Wednesday, Plymouth Argyle and Crewe Alexandra have any rhetorical flourish €“- a disturbingly large number of Scottish teams’€™ names give no clue to their geographical location.

*I know Arsenal were once Woolwich Arsenal and that Everton is a district of Liverpool – as Tranmere is of Birkenhead – but Port Vale (the club plays in Burslem) isn’€™t on maps any more – if it ever was – and the Crystal Palace is long gone: which just leaves QPR and Villa – which may well be a Birmingham geographical locator of which I am ignorant.

The list of obscurely named Scottish clubs is much longer.

I have already, of course, mentioned Kirkcaldy’€™s finest, Raith Rovers (dancing in the streets of Raith.) There are two Saints – of Mirren and Johnstone (and until World War 2 there was a third; of Bernard’€™s) – a Clyde, a Hibernian, two Queens, Queen’€™s Park and Queen Of The South – famously the only football team mentioned in the Bible – an Albion Rovers and two Easts, of Fife and Stirlingshire, which could be located anywhere in their respective counties. In the case of East Stirlingshire their peregrinations actually took them as far west as Clydebank for a season before returning to their Firs Park home in Falkirk, which they have now had to leave; renting space at Stenhousemuir’s ground nearby.

In this context Rangers and Celtic do not count as their full names include the prefix Glasgow. Similarly it is Greenock Morton. While Midlothian as a county no longer exists, Heart Of Midlothian – the actual heart of the county is in the centre of Edinburgh, not off Gorgie Road; and there is a mosaic over the spot which is supposed to confer luck if you spit into it (Edinburgh is not quite the douce place you might take it for) – are named for a Walter Scott novel, apparently via a local dance hall. Likewise the County of Ross is no more; in any case the eponymous club plays out of Dingwall. Was there ever a county of Stockport by the way? Yes, and no. A county borough apparently.

There is a Raith estate in Kirkcaldy – and a former Raith cinema – so the name makes some sense; but it’€™s not on any maps of Scotland. Clyde are somewhat disappointingly so called because they first played by the banks of that river, though they now rent a ground in Cumbernauld from the local council.

The Paisley club St Mirren are named after the local Saint, Mirin; St Johnstone from Saint John’s town (of Perth,) and the now long defunct St Bernard’s after a local well by the Water of Leith.

East Fife are located in Methil in – err – east Fife. Like (Glasgow) Celtic, Hibernian FC’s name reflects the Irish roots of its founders but otherwise has no relevance to Edinburgh, or Leith if you must, where they are domiciled.

Albion Rovers play home games in Coatbridge and were formed from a merger between teams called, rather prosaically, Albion and Rovers.

Queen’s Park is obvious but its city isn’€™t. (Compare Queen’€™s Park Rangers.) There was, too, once a King’s Park club, but that was in Stirling. Queen Of The South is an epithet given to the town of Dumfries by the poet David Dunbar. The club which took the name amalgamated in 1919 from other teams in the area including 5th Kircudbrightshire Rifle Volunteers and 5th King’s Own Scottish Borderers. In this regard the former Third Lanark team (based in Glasgow, not Lanark) were also geographically obscure, and were again derived from a military source, the Third Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers.

Historical teams in this vein are Northern, whose ground was in Springburn in Glasgow, and Thistle who also played in Glasgow at Braehead. This last is not to be confused with Partick Thistle whose ground is actually in the Maryhill district of Glasgow and not in Partick itself. Other former Scottish League clubs Solway Star, Nithsdale Wanderers and Mid-Annandale (originally Vale Of Dryfe!) had, though, some geographical pointer in their names, albeit to a wide area.

The daddy of all such non-geographically named teams is Royal Albert, for two and a half years in the 1920s members of the Scottish League. Based in Larkhall, they now play junior football. The name comes from a ship their founder also owned. They apparently bear a relationship to the Hawick team, Hawick Royal Albert, who were founded by a man from Larkhall.

I hope all is clear now.

The Rock, 12/9/09

A clean sheet.

A clean sheet!

It’s earlier than last year – that didn’t come till Dec 13th – but in the context of the season so far it’s something of a miracle.

I couldn’t bear to look up the scores at any time during the game and kept well away from any source of news. It’s just as well because if I’d seen the situation at half time (down to ten men) I’d have been fretting the whole second half.

Looking at the team list it seems we had a whole new centre back pairing. Maybe that made the difference.

So it’ll only be the 105 league goals against then.

(All we need to do now is start scoring.)