Written by John - OTR Saturday, 04 November 2000 00:00

It may be Guy Fawkes season, but there were no fireworks in this match. The closest thing to a sparkler was Paddy Flannery's equalizing goal in the 80th minute. It came from a Dumbarton corner. Paddy, with his back to the goal, tee-ed up the ball in the penalty box and executed a perfect overhead kick to send the ball beyond Jim Butter in the Shire goal. A few minutes later he had the chance to win the game, but his shot from inside the box, curved wide.

In all honesty, Dumbarton were never in this game. In fact they were fortunate not to be one nil down early doors when a poor Alan Brown passback left a Shire player with only an empty net to hit. Amazingly he shot wide. Alan Brown, to his credit, improved after that and was unlucky to find himself booked in the second half even though he clearly played the ball in a tackle.

The game was so poor, that Flannery's goal was Dumbarton's only effort on target. Jim Butter only had to catch the ball three times, twice from corners and once from a bye-line cut back.

The standout players for Dumbarton, were Andy Brown for lots of hard work and John Hillcoat for a couple of nice stops. Apart from that, it was mince all round.