Sons have re-signed the following players from last season's promotion winning squad; Nicoll Prunty Agnew Creaney Lithgow Grindlay Walker Ewings Gilhaney McNiff Lyden is already under contract for the coming season as he signed a 2 year deal last time. Mark Lamont is to return to us on loan from St Mirren again though it hasn't been officially announced yet. We have signed 6 new players in Garry Fleming (midfielder from Irvine Meadow Juniors), Josh Horne (defender from St Mirren under 19s), Jim Lister (striker from Brechin City), Phil Johnston (winger from Airdrie United), Andy Graham and Ross Forsyth (right back and left back respectively, both from Greenock Morton) and we have promoted five under 19s into the first team pool, these will feature mainly in the new Reserve League. The under 19s who've been promoted are Metcalfe, Pearson, Thomson, McKell and another whose name I forget. We offered new deals to: Wallace Dargo Gastal All three have chosen to move on instead. Wallace is reportedly training with Greenock Morton, Dargo will be looking for anyone willing to offer him full time football and Gastal has opted to leave presumably as he didn't fancy being third choice keeper. First league game of the season is scheduled for 11th August away to title favourites Dundee, and that is preceded by a Challenge Cup tie at home against Queen of the South on July 28th. Pre season friendlies have been arranged against Brechin City, Queens Park, Albion Rovers (all away games) and home games against Clydebank and St Mirren. We don't have a pre season game scheduled against Motherwell for a change. We agreed a season or two back to have a feeder club relationship with them (also with St Mirren I believe to some extent), but as yet no game against them has been arranged. Fixtures can be found here: http://www.dumbartonfootballclub.com/fixtures/ League Cup first round draw has still to be made.
In all honesty, he wasn't all that great. He came onto a game at the very end, but up until he scored the goal that got us the 2-1 at Stirling that took us into the play offs he had only scored once prior, his goals to games ratio looks good in retrospect as he scored a hattrick in the last game of the normal season against Brechin (a game in which we played our youths and reserves mainly to keep the key players fit for the play offs), but that game was a "dead rubber" in that we had already secured the play off place by that time. His two goals in the play offs were well taken, but if Airdrie's defence were even remotely competent they would have exploited his lack of pace and he wouldn't have scored them so well. Thankfully Airdrie's defence decided not to turn up that day and the rest is history. He played for Partick Thistle in Division One before joining us and was out of his depth. He clearly had a brain for the game and was probably a good foil for Prunty given his vision for a key pass, but I don't think he's got long left as a striker, the legs are away. Maybe he'd do a decent job as a creative midfielder. He wasn't keen to stay part time as he's been full time for his whole career until his short stay at Sons so he's away to look for a deal elsewhere, so it's a case of thanks for memories. We'll always have Airdrie
I was a bit bemused at the signings of Lister and Johnstone as they seem to be average 2nd division players at best. Forsyth and Graham are good signings thought I think. Part of a very good Stirling defence when they won the 2nd and have 1st division experience. Dumabrton have pretty good centre back options in Lithgow, McNiff and Nugent so that's a decent defence. Still think you guys should pray for Airdrie to get 'promoted'.
Forsyth has had a poor season, I'm looking forward to seeing David Graham up against him next season. Andy Graham was abysmal until the last half dozen games of the season, in which he was excellent.
Andy Graham has been named as our on-field captain for the season. Based on the two pre-season ties so far, I'd assume he'll occupy our right back spot.
Yes. 1st division next year is... Airdrie Cowdenbeath Dumbarton Dunfermline Falkirk Hamilton Livingston Morton Partick Thistle Raith Rovers
Right, of the 2 competitive games we've played so far, the first was a 0 - 1 defeat at home to Second Division Queeon of the South in the first rounbd of the Challenge Cup and the second was a 2 - 0 win over Second Division Albion Rovers in the first round of the League Cup. The first league game of the season is this Saturday away to Airdrie United, revisiting the site of our glorious promotion from the end of last season.
Yup, but we've been unable to escape the Nazi bastards. We played them 6 times last season (4 in the regular league season and twice in the play offs) and will play them a minimum of 4 times this season, plus we could get them in the play offs again! I'm sick of the sight of them.
Gametime @ 10? Gonna be following on Twitter whilst watching the gold medal match on TV. Also - pretty excited about being able to see the Edinburgh derby on TV tomorrow morning in the States. So glad football is back!
I think this will be a pretty painful season for the Sons. They might even break their own record for a low points total in the 1st.