Fix of Division 2 action

Just a quick post here; I feel I need to do something, yet my World Cup previews are quite time-consuming, so I'll leave them for now and do a little ditty on my football team Dumbarton, henceforth The Sons.

I spent this afternoon at Forthbank in Stirling to watch us take on Stirling Albion, a club who may not get much mention a few months from now as they may not exist. Coming into Stirling, you encounter a 'Save the Albion' banner draped across the side of the road. It would seem though, that this is about the only thing the campaigners have bothered to do. Certainly, the home attendance did not seem in any way increased, or come across as anything other than apathetic- no banners, protests or even rude songs directed at the chairman in sight.

It is a sad fact of life that most of the lower league Scottish teams are practically operating day-to-day. It struck me when I discovered, as a small shareholder, that a couple of years back, Dumbarton were the only Second Division club to operate in the black. In a league where there is no real talent to sell on, and little in the way of crowds and commercial opportunities available, survival basically comes down to having an astute and prudent board. I suppose having a rich man as owner is an option. How did that work out Gretna?

Dumbarton are in the black because we get solid attendances and rarely actually get the chequebook out and buy anybody. Perhaps we sold it...

Stirling today will be happy of our strong away support boosting their gates, as well as the atmosphere we created("Beanie, you still have the hair of a latent homosexual", directed at ex-Sons hero Ian 'Beanie' Russell being a particular highlight). Our away support is comfortably the best in Division 2, and must be up there with the best of the entire lower leagues.

In terms of football, this was actually a decent game. First half, both teams looked sharp- Stirling playing some incisive through balls along the slippery pitch, the Sons demonstrating some decent counter attacks and overlap moves out wide. In typical Sons fashion, we opened the second half by defending progressively deeper into our own half, until the inevitable shot from 20 yards flew past our 5'1" keeper.

From then on, our SPL quality frontman Dennis Wyness showed, for the first time, some quality. His previous pacelessness...well, remained. But he ran on to a lofted lobbed ball and beautifully and delicately scooped it over Stirling's big booted, also about 5'1" and probably 12 year old goalie.

Soon after, a good sustained Dumbarton attack, follwed by a baffling lack of commitment by said keeper, led to Wyness latching onto a driven and seemingly inoccuous cross to place the ball home. And at 2-1, we actually did some decent defending for once and closed the game out. Marvelous.

A win that moves us closer to being able to be denyed a playoff spot on the final day instead of the penultimate match. But hugely satisfying nonetheless. While I don't wish at all for any team to go out of business, Stirling's fans certainly didn't strike me as caring much, and at the end of the day Albion do occupy one of the playoff spots above Dumbarton...

GM