Written by John - OTR Monday, 19 April 2010 12:13

Well, I did actually manage to get to Alloa on Saturday and saw the Sons take three points off the league leaders in a game with plenty of twists and turns.

The first twist was Dumbarton taking the lead when a low cross ball evaded the Alloa defenders and landed at the feet of the unmarked David Winters. Winters made no mistake, blasting the ball into the net. 

Five minutes later, another twist as Alloa's David McClune got his marching orders after holding back Iain Chisholm on the edge of the box. A red card seemed a bit over top until I realised it was McClune's second yellow. Fair enough, off you go son.

With the way the match had been going, I felt that Dumbarton were going to stroll through the rest of the game. The teams had been fairly even before the first goal. In fact, I had been wondering how the hell Alloa had such a commanding lead in the division. After all, I had seen Sons take them apart at the previous game at Recreation Park and we were on top here.

At the start of the second half, I began to see why. Alloa came out firing, really taking the game to Dumbarton. That pressure was rewarded when Chris Smith attempted an overly physical shoulder charge in the penalty area. From where I was standing, I couldn't see whether the contact was clean shoulder-to-shoulder but the physicality of the challenge was probably enough for the referee to make his mind up. Penalty to Alloa it was. And duly dispatched. 1-1.

Alloa kept up the pressure especially on Chris Smith who nearly cost Dumbarton the lead with some terrible defending and some ill-advised challenges. But Sons survived.

In the 64th minute, Wyness put Sons back in front from an Iain Chisholm cross and Wyness hit the crossbar a few minutes later.

As the game went on, it became end-to-end excitement. Sons had several great opportunities to score but missed and Alloa kept piling on the pressure with goalmouth stramashes galore and several corners in the final five minutes. 

I was a relieved man when the referee finally brought the game to a close.

So three points to Dumbarton, taking us into 5th place, thanks to Peterhead's humbling by Clyde. Sons are now four points off Brechin City in the fourth playoff place but we're going to need to win both our remaining games and hope that Brechin don't get two points from their remaining matches against Cowdenbeath (twice) and Stirling Albion. 

Still possible.

** Comedy moment of the match - The Alloa PA system playing the theme tune to the A-Team after Alloa scored. Hilarious. In a very bad way **

** Rare celebrity sighting of the match - A certain Mr Robert Ryan of pet shop and blogging fame was at the game today. **