On The Rocks - A Dumbarton FC Website

The last time I visited Ochilview I witnessed one of the most excruciatingly boring games I had ever seen. Things were better today, but not by much.

The playing personnel had certainly changed since Jim Chapman took over and as this was my first game since my last visit to Stenny there were lots of new faces. I was impressed by centre half Gordon Lennon. He barely put a foot wrong during the 90 minutes and he marshalled the defence very well. But his defensive partner, Mick O'Byrne, was pretty average I thought.

Along with the new faces with still have some of the old. Tommy Coyne must be one of the most frustrating players I have ever seen, even more than Robert Docherty. He works his socks off during the game but his finishing is just rubbish. And why do we still have Chris Gentile on the books?

Anyway, on to the game. The first half was all Sons. I mean total dominance. Unfortunately there was only one goal to show for it, when Andy Geggan bulleted a header past the keeper from a cross by triallist Kenny Wright.

The second half was completely the opposite. Stenny had control of the midfield for vast quantities of the time. Luckily they only had one goal to show for their efforts. Sub Jose Quitongo skinned Gentile on the wing and whipped over a cross that the Sons defence failed to get to. Ian Harty got to it first and despite keeper Crawford's great reactions the ball went in off the crossbar. A draw was probably a fair result.

As you've probably gathered, I've pretty much lost interest in the Sons this season. Quite frankly we are utter pish and I can't be arsed travelling through on the train, spending whatever is these days for the privilege of standing and then watching Sons getting humped by whichever team of diddies have turned up to play us.

I've been there and down that several times in the past. And, just now, I've got better things to do with my time. So I'll probably not be at The Rock at all this season. I will though drag my sorry arse to the "local" away games, like the Shire and Stenhousemuir in a couple of weeks time.

Hopefully, we'll have dragged ourselves up from last place in the division, a position we now occupy thanks to Forfar's win on Tuesday night.

Sorry for the lack of updates but time has been short. The house and back garden have been getting a makeover, which was tiring and very detrimental to my bank balance.

Anyway, on the Dumbarton front, things are rolling along in their usual fashion. A win here, a defeat there. We're not looking like a team that's going to be challenging for promotion but there's nothing new about that.

On Saturday, Sons went down at home to Stenhousemuir. I saw the first goal go through on the Sky Sports vidiprinter after three minutes and thought "Excellent. An early goal. Should be able to control the game". But one minute later Stenny equalised and it was "Shite, we're going to get beat". Which indeed we did. But not according the Scotland on Sunday. Remarkably, their match report has Dumbarton and Stenny playing out a 1-1 draw. Here's the full report below before they change it. Here's the link

"DUMBARTON 1 STENHOUSEMUIR 1

DUMBARTON and Stenhousemuir both lost ground in the Third Division table, playing out a lacklustre 1-1 draw.

Robert Campbell gave the Sons an early lead after just three minutes. He was set up by Brian McPhee, making his debut after missing the start of the season through injury. McPhee flicked the ball into the path of Campbell who bundled home from a couple of yards.

But the lead was short-lived as Steven Hampshire equalised for Stenny less than 60 seconds later. Paul Tyrell launched the ball in the box and Hampshire chipped it into the goal.

Dumbarton would have taken the lead again had it not been for some excellent goalkeeping from John Hillcoat and at the other end Hampshire could have snatched a win for the visitors but his last-minute effort came off the post."

Pretty poor performance for Scotland's leading quality Sunday newspaper, eh

God, where do you start? Beaten by East Stirlingshire twice in 4 days....and deservedly so. Shire were the better team on both occasions.

On Saturday, despite the leaky defence, it was Sons' poor finishing that cost us the game. We made plenty of chances. David McFarlane, the best player on the park by a country mile, had a couple of chances that he really should have put away as did Fergus Tiernan, who ought to have a hat trick. To give Shire credit, they are a much improved side this year. At times during the second half they were passing the ball about with consummate ease and with a small stretch of the imagination it could have been the all white Real Madrid you were watching instead of the all white Shire.

Last night's game was a travesty. At least on Saturday it was Sons' best team against Shire's best team. Last night, it was Sons' reserves against Shire's reserves for which we had to pay nine quid to see. An absolute disgrace. I'll definitely be sending in my complaint to DFC.

The football itself was, to put it mildly, utter shite. We couldn't pass. We could't track players. We couldn't do fuck all. Anton Nugent in goal was a very busy man indeed and made several good and a couple of excellent saves. Without him Shire could easily have been into double figures. Nugent and the scorer of both goals, Robert Campbell, were the only players with passmarks.

Now you may think I being a bit harsh here after all over half the team were from the under-19 squad. But I don't think I am. I paid £18 for myself and girlfriend to watch Sons play in a national cup competition. Not a Stirlingshire Cup game. Not a preseason friendly. Not a testimonial. A national cup competition. I expect to see a strong team especially when I am being charged the same price as I paid on Saturday. The team that was put on the field was not worthy. They were crap.

Before I go, here are a selection of songs sung by the Shire fans over the last two games. Obviously going from not winning a home game for over 11 months to winning two in a row against Sons is a joyful experience. And they were rubbing it in goooood.

A Selection of Shire Songs

from Saturday after the Sons' support went a bit quiet after going behind

From Tuesday's game. Their number 8, new signing Sean Simpson, had a great game.

Hey, if you had played two games back to back against Sons and humped them, wouldn't you want to?

From Tuesday's game after going 3-2 up. If Gerry doesn't get the team winning he'll be going to the Job Centre.

That'll be the League Cup campaign over then. And the bonus is we got our goalkeeper sent off for two yellow cards making him unavailable for Saturday's game. But seeing as we're playing East Stirlingshire he wouldn't have been needed anyway!

It all kicks off again tomorrow and I can hardly get up the enthusiasm for it.

Billy Stark, manager of promoted Queen's Park, had this to say about our chances:-

It'll be tough for Dumbarton to challenge due to a lack of investment, I think finishing in the top half of the table will be their limit.

and I agree with him. My feeling is that we'll be struggling to get into the promotion places this year. Tomorrow's match is against Elgin City, one of last season's whipping boys so a victory against them isn't going to tell us much, unless, of course, we absolutely hammer them with silky, samba-style soccer and goals aplenty.

Aye right.

So the mighty SFL fixtures computer has drawn us away to smelly Cowdenbeath, home of the Blue Brazil in the first round of the CIS Cup with the tie to take place either on Tuesday 9th or Wednesday 10th of August.

I wonder if that big, fat guy that streams obscenties at anything that moves still goes?

I was going to write a big post detailing all the summer transfer movements.....but I couldn't be arsed.

So to sum up. Some donkeys have left and some more donkeys have joined.

p.s. I was sorry to see John Dillon leave. He was epitome of the "utility player". Good luck, John