BETTER times for Dumbarton, as they enter the new era that was outlined yesterday, have come at the worst of times. All season the Sons have taken a sore skelping and at the bottom they sit.
For three seasons most of the fun for their fans has been akin to the thrill of downhill ski-ing. Yet their team have twice been champions of all. They have after all won the Scottish Cup. That, however, was not this year, it was not even this century. But in all their days, Dumbarton have not before been left looking up at everybody else, never once since 1872.
Home wins this season have totalled two, and at Boghead today going for a third means the challenge of beating Cowdenbeath, whom cruel statistics rate as the second worst team in the land. To a harsh outside world it amounts to the non-match of the day.
All of the normal optimistic decency for the end of a season will be observed. The tricky and inventive Martin Mooney will receive the reward of player of the year from Graeme Robertson, editor of the Sons View match programme.
In last Saturday's game at Montrose (a defeat as it happens), Mooney, a fireman in real life, scored his fiftieth league goal in his 200th appearance.
Graeme Robertson was there. He has been persistently and loyally there at every ground on the extended atlas of the third division. Estimating the size of Dumbarton's travelling crowd at Links Park, he counted them individually up to 20. ''I could give you our names if you like,'' he said. In his real life he is something august at the head office in Edinburgh of a bank.
He is one of a support team of 10 otherwise mature and sensible persons - bank executives, a lawyer, office managers, a draughtsman, a civil servant - who everywhere stand and suffer for Dumbarton. ''If I wanted to sit, I would go to the pictures,'' he said. Where so ever the Sons goeth, they go, although he conceded that for the longest journeys on bleakest Saturdays there were sometimes call-offs.
For today's programme he wrote with some perplexity about all the weeping and wailing for Hibernian and other losers. For Dumbarton he wants no tears. ''Sons' fans have had more practice recently than most at this particularly feeling and, funnily enough, life seems to have gone on,'' is the view he takes.
After the crunch with the Cowden, the team of 10 will have their regular ritual at the end of a season of a last supper of curries and vie with each other to avoid coming last in a 300-question quiz set by Jim McAllister, the club historian and archivist.
Jim McAllister has followed Dumbarton since aged three. ''They're where I find home on
Saturdays. Always there is the fear of missing something. I'd hate not to be there in case something sensational might happen,'' he offered by way of an explanation.
Feelings are mixed about losing Boghead as a change from losing at it. It is the most ancient hallowed feel in the Scottish game, or possibly the world. Dumbarton have stuck by their roots since 1879. It's sward has been studded by legions of worthy Sons - the brothers Parlane and Coyle, goal-hungry Kenny Wilson, mighty Mark Clougherty, Ian Wallace, who has returned as manager, and now Martin Mooney.
Boghead may be the most scenic park anywhere. Eyes that weary of following the ball lift to The Crag, a majestic outcrop of the Kilpatricks, or else view at night games the illuminated splendour of the town's rock and castle. At today's match will be eyed a favourite crush barrier, a square of turf, or a stand seat as a future adornment of back gardens. Memories linger since 1979 of its 100-seat stand called the Hen Hoose. A social club was housed in a former workmen's bothy from the building of the Forth Road Bridge. One section of terracing is still enclosed by the roof from the vanished train station at Turnberry, Ayrshire. Graeme Robertson reckoned that as a football shrine the park has sustained 24 mature trees.
Like others, he has seen a flitting coming. Houses have been encroaching on the site for most of this century. Once called Fatal Boghead because of how its hilly terrain put visiting teams in awe, the old park has lost its capacity to intimidate or even amuse.
Abandoning Boghead was talked about as part of an earlier fresh start in 1975.
After toying with taking over Clydebank, the Sons contemplated an uprooting as the only way forward.
Where they flirted with then was Cumbernauld.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article