Written by John - OTR Saturday, 03 May 2003 00:00

The relegation battle will go the last game of the season after this 1-1 draw with Brechin City.

Dumbarton should have been 1-0 up within 3 minutes when Iain Russell got the ball on the left wing. He went tearing into the Brechin penalty area but hit a poor shot straight at the keeper.

Brechin held the upper hand for most of the half putting the Sons defence under a fair bit of pressure. Although they were helped by some weak Sons defending. Neil Collins, in particular, wasn't having the greatest of days. Collins made several uncharacteric errors, one of which lead the Brechin's goal. A weak clearing header from Collins found its way to Charlie King who blasted the ball beyond Grindlay.

It was looking like it would stay 1-0 at half time until a cross from Iain Russell in the 42nd minute seemed to drift beyond everyone except Emeka Obidile at the back post who prodded into under the City keeper.

Second half saw Brechin line up with top striker Chris Templeman which was a relief but his replacement, Gibson, was just as big and gave the Sons backline a headache throughout the half. Sons came out all cylinders firing. For the first ten minutes all the attacks seemed to coming through Obidile on the right wing. One of his attacks lead to a corner from which Paddy Flannery crashed a header against the keeper and post.

Brechin came back into the game and once again some poor defending almost cost Sons dear. Collins and Grindlay got their wires crossed which let a Brechin attacker nip in and collect the ball. Grindlay saved the day when he managed to claw the cross ball behind for a corner.

It was end-to-end stuff in the second half with both teams creating opporunities. In the final few minutes, Sons came within a couple of inches of winning when John Dillon had a deflected shot hit off the crossbar.

But it wasn't to be. The season comes to a close on May 10th. A win will definitely keep Sons up. Anything else and results elsewhere will decide Dumbarton's fate.