Written by John - OTR Monday, 31 August 2009 12:23
A couple of weeks ago, the Club announced details of the new "third" strip. The strip is meant to be a throwback, nay, a homage, to the mainly white strips of the 70s, which are vey popular with the fans. I, personally, love the white strips. My favourite DFC strip was the away top of the 1986/87 season, my first season following the Sons. It was white with a black and gold flash on the right shoulder. Pure class. Although when I picture it in my mind, it's always being worn by the slightly overweight Peter Houston against Partick Thistle at a wet and windy midweek Firhill, which sort of ruins it a bit.
Getting back on topic, here's a picture of the strip.
I don't like it.
For one, I'm against the whole idea of producing a third strip. Is it going to be worn on the pitch by the players? Doubt it. It's basically a device to fleece the fans of more money. Just like when season ticket holders had to start paying for Cup games.
Secondly, the Ballantines logo plastered on the front absolutely ruins it. It totally destroys the diagonal flow of the black and gold stripe. I wouldn't have minded as much if the Ballantines logo blended in so that it sat on top of the diagonal strip but didn't obscure it. Now what they should have done is follow what Man City did with their away strip. They've put a smaller version of the sponsor's logo, ETIHAD (national airline of the UAE apparently), under the club crest on the left breast. Diagonal stripe is still intact, looks fantastic.
So, please don't buy me the third strip for my Christmas. Don't.
Of course, if you do want a piece of Dumbarton nostalgia or enjoy the white strips as much as I do, what you want is one of the TOFFS circa 1973ish replica jersies. White with a black and gold chest hoop.
Top notch.
Available from The Old Fashioned Football Shirt company.
*EDIT* - TOFFS have a 10% off discount voucher (for orders over £25). Just enter toffs10 at the checkout. It's valid until September 8th.
Written by John - OTR Sunday, 30 August 2009 10:33
Oh well. Still bottom of the table.
Being on call (and lazy) I didn't get to the game but Jack Deighton has a nice little match report. Seems like Sons were a bit unlucky.
Good to see that Denis McLaughlin has made his loan spell permanent and signed a one year deal with the club.
The signing of Czech goalkeeper Jan Vojáček is interesting. It appears that SK Sigma Olomouc held his registration, but he had been loaned out to second division team FC Vysocina in Jihlava for most of last season (2008/2009), playing 25 games, conceding 23 goals. In 2007/2008 he did play 18 times for Sigma.
He seems like a bright lad, getting his a degree in General Medicine while playing with third Division FC UNEX Unicov. But he's putting his medical career on hold while he persues his ambition to play football full time.
Hmmm, he's going to have to put in some outstanding perfomances to get himself noticed elsewhere. Good luck to the lad.
Written by Administrator Friday, 28 August 2009 10:48
Tomorrow Sons are off up the east coast to beautiful Brechin, home of, unsurprisingly, Brechin City.
Brechin have had a mixed start to the season They lost 3-1 away to Elgin City in the Alba Challenge Cup but then beat the same opponents 4-0 in the League Cup a week later. They met Hibs in the second round of League Cup and were roundly cuffed 4-0.
In the league, they lost on the opening day to East Fife, won their second match against Cowdenbeath and lost last week against Stirling Albion.
This will be a very tough game for the Sons.
Here's our recent record against them
| Date | Opponents | Comp. | H/A | Score | Scorers | Att. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 06 Apr 2010 | Brechin City | Div2 | A | 1-0 | Chaplain 56 | 403 |
| 06 Mar 2010 | Brechin City | Div2 | H | 0-1 | 751 | |
| 31 Oct 2009 | Brechin City | Div2 | H | 0-0 | 687 | |
| 29 Aug 2009 | Brechin City | Div2 | A | 1-3 | Dunlop 26 | 470 |
| 09 Apr 2005 | Brechin City | Div2 | H | 1-1 | Dillon 53 | 773 |
| 01 Mar 2005 | Brechin City | Div2 | H | 1-1 | McEwan 21 (pen) | 554 |
| 12 Feb 2005 | Brechin City | Div2 | A | 2-0 | Annand 20, McKinstry 36 | 595 |
| 02 Oct 2004 | Brechin City | Div2 | A | 0-4 | 503 | |
| 03 May 2003 | Brechin City | Div2 | A | 1-1 | Obidele 40 | 895 |
| 11 Mar 2003 | Brechin City | Div2 | H | 1-3 | Flannery 25 pen | 480 |
Written by Administrator Wednesday, 26 August 2009 10:48
DFC's Chief Ass-Kicker Jim Chapman has secured the services of another young donkey. Ross Harvey, previously of the hallowed fields of Brechin City and the slightly less hallowed fields of Rangers Reserves, has signed for the club.
Ross, 20, is a defender. Of the Union, no doubt.
Written by John - OTR Tuesday, 25 August 2009 11:22
Woo Hoo! A point! At home! Against 10-man Clyde! And we scored three goals!
Still bottom though.
Written by John - OTR Monday, 17 August 2009 11:05
It's all going swimmingly well so far, isn't it?
Sons fell to a 3-1 defeat on Saturday against Arbroath at Gayfield. Roddy Hunter got the Dumbarton goal in the 89th minute. I was glued to the Sky Sports vidiprinter at this point hoping to see another goal go in.
And it did.
For Arbroath.
So two weeks in, two defeats and Sons are the bottom of the division.
Magic.
Written by John - OTR Friday, 14 August 2009 09:32
Tomorrow, Sons travel up to Gayfield to face Arbroath in the second game of the league campaign. Arbroath got off to a winning start with a 2-1 win against a 9 man Cowdenbeath side last Saturday.
| Date | Opponents | Comp. | H/A | Score | Scorers | Att. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Apr 2010 | Arbroath | Div2 | H | 0-2 | 836 | |
| 27 Feb 2010 | Arbroath | Div2 | A | 1-3 | Winters 9 | 521 |
| 24 Oct 2009 | Arbroath | Div2 | H | 1-0 | Chaplain 45 | 696 |
| 15 Aug 2009 | Arbroath | Div2 | A | 1-3 | Hunter 89 | 605 |
| 05 Mar 2008 | Arbroath | Div3 | A | 0-0 | 0 | |
| 23 Feb 2008 | Arbroath | Div3 | H | 2-1 | Canning 37, 61 | 0 |
| 03 Nov 2007 | Arbroath | Div3 | H | 1-1 | McPhee 3 | 637 |
| 18 Aug 2007 | Arbroath | Div3 | A | 1-1 | Hamilton 84 | 647 |
| 03 Apr 2007 | Arbroath | Div3 | H | 1-0 | Borris 54 | 527 |
| 10 Mar 2007 | Arbroath | Div3 | A | 2-2 | Geggan 7, Henry 12 | 810 |
Written by John - OTR Tuesday, 11 August 2009 07:39
New donkey, Darren Gribben, has indeed left the club for pastures new according the official website and the BBC. "For personal reasons" they say, which could cover a multitude of real reasons like "didn't like the view" or "had a barney with the manager".
And it looks like he's ran back to Berwick Rangers asking if he can get back in. But Berwick have a full complement of strikers so it looks like that stable door has been bolted.
Did you see what I did there? Stable door....donkey.....you know, close the stable door after the donkey has bolted. I crack me up sometimes.
Written by John - OTR Monday, 10 August 2009 14:00
So, now that OTR is back, I'd better post some content.
Fucking jammie bastarding Cowdenbeath bastards. That's all I have to say on the matter.
The usual donkeys out, donkeys in. Although one of our new, younger, fitter donkeys seems to have gone in the huff with our Chief Ass Kicker, Mr Chapman. Will we ever see Darren Gribben again?
Pretty disastrous, eh? Including the Alba Cup, the Co-op Insurance Cup and the Stirlingshire Cup the record was P9 W2 L7 with the two victories being in the 'Shire Cup on penalties. To be fair, the majority of teams we played against were in higher divisions so perhaps it was to be expected. It's probably all part of Mr Chapman's Master Plan, you know the one that has us dicking around for most of the season experimenting with various exotic formations before realising that we play best in the good, old fashioned 4-4-2 formation, then storming up the league to win with one match to go.
Not a great start, losing 3-1 at home to the mighty Alloa Athletic. Before the season started, I'd look at the League Division 2 table on the BBC website, see Dumbarton sitting in mid position with zero points, the same as everyone else, and say to myself, "I'll have some of that". Mid table finish - a nice, realistic target.
Aye right.
Written by John - OTR Monday, 10 August 2009 09:10
After some structural work and a fresh lick of paint, On The Rocks has a new look.
The previous version of On The Rocks was built on Joomla 1.0.x, the immensely popular content management system. A few years ago, I had spent a whole lot of time migrating all the behind-the-scenes database code of the into a Joomla component and then pu the whole site into Joomla. And then I left it. Didn't do diddly-squat with it. Na-da. Nothing. Didn't even get to round to putting all the old match reports up, not even the "Every game, Kenny" ones.
Time passed. Joomla went up to version 1.5 but OTR stayed on 1.0.x. More and more security holes were found in 1.0.x but I didn't get off my arse. Finally, with Joomla 1.0.x reaching its official end-of-life I began to rewrite the OTR component for Joomla 1.5.
It was a bigger job than I expected - much bigger. Why is why the new site didn't go up until last night. But it's live now. There is still quite a bit to do but it will get done. Maybe!
Written by Administrator Monday, 04 May 2009 16:28
So barring a very unlikey scoring fest by East Stirlingshire on Saturday, Sons have won the Division Three title.
You have to hand it Jim Chapman here, he eventually found the winning formula and it paid off with a fantastic finishing sequence, including breaking the club record for minutes without conceding a goal.
I must be honest here - I didn't think Sons would do it. In fact, at the start of the year I thought a play-off place would be unlikely. I'd had the misfortune of watching a turgid 1-1 draw at Stenhousemuir followed the week after by the 5-2 hammering by East Stirlingshire. We were so poor in that game and so thoroughly taken apart by the Shire that promotion seemed like a pipe dream.
After New Year, I was at another defeat by East Stirlingshire, this time by three goals to one, although to be fair, it was a much closer contest and the 'Shire were helped by an exceptionally soft penalty in the second half. Still, I didn't get that promotion feeling.
Victories against Albion Rovers and Elgin got March off to a good start but defeats by Montrose and Annan and a draw against Albion Rovers, again cast doubt over the team's promotion credentials.
At the start of April, I saw a Sons victory against Stenhousemuir who were at that point in freefall. It was not a convincing performance but it was a victory and a play-off place was now looking good. This was the second 2-0 win in the space of week and was the start of what could be called the promotion run. Sons beat Forfar and Berwick before being held to a 0-0 draw against the then leaders Cowdenbeath in a game that saw Cowden's normal attendance figure trebled with a vast travelling Sons support. If we had won that game we would have taken over at the top of the table but we knew now that a playoff place was guaranteed.
The following week, Sons did make it to the top after Montrose came from behind to beat Cowden and Sons thrashed Forfar 4-0.
And then we come to last Saturday. I couldn't make it to the game but was glued to the Sky Sports videprinter. Forfar had managed to put two past Cowdenbeath in the first 5 minutes which was just phenomenal. Unfortunately, Cowden managed to get the score level by half time as Dumbarton were cruising to victory against Elgin and the 'Shire were ahead against Albion Rovers. The Cowden-Forfar game finished level and both Sons and the 'Shire won meaning that barring the unlikely huge defeat/huge win scenario, Dumbarton cannot be overtaken with one game to go.
Congratulations to the team, the manager and all connected with the club. Roll on next season.
What would really finish of the season on a high would be Queen's Park staying up, meaning that John Gemmell and Andy Rogers would stay in Division Three. That would be just fantastic. Failing that Stenhousemuir going up would be OK, as Gemmell and Rogers would still be the Third and it gives me another local away game to go to.
Written by Administrator Friday, 27 February 2009 13:03
Tomorrow, I'll be making it along to Ochilview to see the high-flying Sons play the even higher-flying East Stirlingshire.
The fact that Sons are still in contention in the league is something of a mystery to me. The last game I saw, way back in November, was against The Shire and Sons were on the receiving of an unbelievable 5-2 drubbing. Sons were absolutely shocking in that game and the match the previous week against Stenhousemuir. Any yet, we're still in there, sitting in fourth place, the last playoff position. The manager is obviously doing something right just not when I'm around.
Maybe I shouldn't tell him I'm coming!
| Date | Opponents | Comp. | H/A | Score | Scorers | Att. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Jul 2009 | East Stirlingshire | Stir | H | 2-2 | McKillen, Hunter. Sons win 5-4 on penalties | 0 |
| 03 Mar 2009 | East Stirlingshire | Div3 | H | 2-0 | McLaughlin 22, Trialist 32 | 462 |
| 28 Feb 2009 | East Stirlingshire | Div3 | A | 1-3 | Clark 39 | 526 |
| 15 Nov 2008 | East Stirlingshire | Div3 | A | 2-5 | Carcary 87, Michael Moore 90 | 516 |
| 30 Aug 2008 | East Stirlingshire | Div3 | H | 1-1 | Murray 25 | 592 |
| 19 Apr 2008 | East Stirlingshire | Div3 | H | 0-0 | Brittain 11 | 0 |
| 24 Mar 2008 | East Stirlingshire | Div3 | A | 1-1 | McNaught 86 | 0 |
| 18 Dec 2007 | East Stirlingshire | Div3 | H | 3-1 | McPhee 11, Geggan 44, Hamilton 90 | 303 |
| 14 Aug 2007 | East Stirlingshire | CC | A | 2-4 | Campbell 31, 53 | 202 |
| 11 Aug 2007 | East Stirlingshire | Div3 | A | 2-3 | Tiernan 10,15 | 306 |
Page 3 of 7
Vintage 1970s Sons Strip as worn by Kenny Wilson, Colin McAdam, Charlie Gallagher, et al.
available from TOFFS
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