Written by John - OTR Saturday, 18 October 1997 00:00

First of all, the day was brightened up by the arrival of the lurrrvely Lorna with chums, Richard, Noel and Krazy Ivan the Italian who was on his first visit to Scotland.

Dumbarton fielded two new players, Currie and Ewing on loan from Stranraer and Clydebank. Not sure who's from which club though.

County didn't score until the 29th minute which was a bit surprising as we were expecting them to have scored a barrel load by then. Some unmarked guy at the back post headed it in. You would think Dumbarton would have realised by now not to leave players unmarked at back posts. But obviously not.

The remainder of the half was spent teaching Ivan the intricacies of the Scots language and introducing him to the delightful Boghead catering. He must have enjoyed it as he kept sneaking away to buy pies and Irn Bru. Little did he know that he's just lowered his life expectancy by at least 4 years.

Early in the second half, County scored again and it was all looking a bit grim. But then our super subs, Hugh Ward and Martin Glancy, started to shine. Shuggy pulled one back after latching on to a defensive error and rounding Nicky Walker. A minute later Glancy cheekily flicked a low cross from Shug into the net and it was 2-2. From then on County seemed to struggle and Dumbarton took command of the game. If the match had lasted another 5 minutes, I reckon we could have won it. But it wasn't to be. Looking on the bright side though, it means that we're unbeaten in the last two home games and Jim the Hippy still hasn't seen us lose since he got his lucky Taz tattoo.

The early evening entertainment was provided by Ivan who was continuing the full Scottish experience by having a couple of whiskies. He had to leave early to go to a party. Apparently there were some Swedish girls going so you can't really blame him. Or maybe he just made up this party just to escape Lorna's appalling jokes.

The late evening entertainment was laid on by various Dumbarton players who'd turned up at the Cutty. Now, it's not often this happens so I did my sad fan-boy act and got my programme signed. Jim the Hippy was too embarrassed to get his signed so he got Lorna to do it instead. For the rest of night we sat, got pished and talked to the players, getting all the gossip, a lot of which isn't repeatable here. We ended up at the Waverly watching Jim Meechan and Hugh Ward make complete arses of themselves. Quite funny really. Then we toddled on up the road thinking about the hangovers that we were going to have the next morning.

And we did have hangovers in the morning. But it was worth it.