Written by John - OTR Saturday, 29 August 1998 00:00

Another perfect footballing day. The sun splitting the sky, hardly any wind. Just perfect. Alas, the scoreline wasn't.

The season is starting to take on a familiar feeling. Dumbarton dominated this game, in the first half particularily but once again no one could get the ball in the back on the net, not even Joe Robertson, who according to Ian Wallace in the Daily Record was signed to break our goals drought. He did show some good skill though and looks like he could do a job for us. But then again, a one-legged, blind monkey could probably do a job for us.

The first half was excellent by recent standards. The midfield were creating chances everywhere, passing and movement were good, crosses were on target. The defence easily broke up any Berwick Rangers attacks that didn't break up of their own accord. The only blot on the copybook was the poor finishing. Stephen Jack missed a good chance. Martin Mooney was put through but tried to hit the ball past the keeper with the outside of his right foot and fluffed it. Billy Melvin made some superb runs but either held the ball too long or made an arse of his shot.

In contrast to previous matches, Dumbarton's form slumped in the second half. The first half fluency wasn't there and a few players seemed to be struggling to control the ball. This was Berwick's best spell of the match and Kenny Meechan had to make a couple of saves but nothing too energetic. The nearest Berwick came to scoring was when they hit the side-netting after lobbing Kenny on the edge of the box.

The pace of the game rose in the final ten minutes with Dumbarton finally regaining the upper hand. Craig Brittain was starting to link up well with Joe Robertson who managed to put in a couple of excellent crosses. Lee Sharp came closest to putting one away when he somehow put the ball over the bar from six yards with his left foot when it seemed much easier to use his right.

So, it finished 0-0, giving Dumbarton their third clean sheet in four league games, which is a bit strange. We'll soon be singing "Boring Boring Dumbarton".