Sons' sorrow

[Nowhereman]

1979 or so is when I meant Wilf. A few years after our peak in the mid seventies.

[Boghead ranter]

3 hours ago, Howlin' Wilf said:

Your memory is playing tricks Nowhereman. in 1976 our average was still a multiple of 1000 perhaps 2-3 times that. In1976 we ran, if I remember correctly, 17 buses from Dumbarton for the cup semi as well as many going by train or car. Three buses ran from Helensburgh. The quarter final against Killie at Boghead attracted around 8,000 - with around 5,000 supporting the home team. The real dwindle in numbers started around 1979.

 

25 minutes ago, Nowhereman said:

1979 or so is when I meant Wilf. A few years after our peak in the mid seventies.

Just about when I started going regularly then. Looks like I need to take a share of the blame 

[ThirdrockfromtheSon]

On 16 October 2016 at 17:37, son of a bankie said:

How do I get to send pm on this wanting to give curler and third rock my number.

I sent you a pm SoAB, to show you how to do a pm.

[ThirdrockfromtheSon]

8 hours ago, Howlin' Wilf said:

Your memory is playing tricks Nowhereman. in 1976 our average was still a multiple of 1000 perhaps 2-3 times that. In1976 we ran, if I remember correctly, 17 buses from Dumbarton for the cup semi as well as many going by train or car. Three buses ran from Helensburgh. The quarter final against Killie at Boghead attracted around 8,000 - with around 5,000 supporting the home team. The real dwindle in numbers started around 1979.

IIRC We had 12,500 at the Killie game, and 10,000 at the Partick game.

[George Parr]

On the basis that we're already writing off this Saturday as a standard away defeat, it seems to me that the following two fixtures v Dunfermline (8th) and St. Mirren (10th) could make or break the current management team.

I expect them to get a lot more out of this group of players than what was witnessed against Ayr. Whilst I'm (very) cautiously coming round to the idea of League 1 football next season, it would be annoying to see us slip out the Championship feebly after competing so well over the last 5 years.

Make a fist of it and go down fighting.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

25 minutes ago, Consolidate said:

On the basis that we're already writing off this Saturday as a standard away defeat, it seems to me that the following two fixtures v Dunfermline (8th) and St. Mirren (10th) could make or break the current management team.

I expect them to get a lot more out of this group of players than what was witnessed against Ayr. Whilst I'm (very) cautiously coming round to the idea of League 1 football next season, it would be annoying to see us slip out the Championship feebly after competing so well over the last 5 years.

Make a fist of it and go down fighting.

To be honest, I was always alarmed by the early-season braggadocio of some of our posters on here re the playing squad.  I've been of the opinion that it's patchy at best and that view is now being accompanied by a realisation that some guys are simply not of the quality to compete in the Championship.  And the balance has never looked right.

Sure the Management team assembled the team, but on a tight(er) budget.  Against that, were what funds were available invested wisely ?  Like yourself, Consolidate, I don't want us to go down in the manner of 20 years ago, but on growing evidence we might not have any great say in that.

I'm thinking of the new stadium to take my mind off it

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

The fact Stevie was reminding us how tiny his budget was during every single interview should have had alarm bells ringing. The fact of the matter is that we don't have all that small a squad (despite the ludicrous chants of 18 players) and I don't believe for a minute that the budget is all that smaller than last year, minus maybe a Nade sized wage. After all the pissing and moaning we went out and recruited a decent crop of well paid players in Joe Thomson, Harvie, Stanton and Todd (expenses, obv).

It screamed to me that it was simply him trying to lower expectations and have us believe we were only able to afford to pay players peanuts (not true).

I also had a chat with a couple of players after the Clydebank game and the impression I got was that they were concerned about our prospects this season.

An air of negativity was present from day 1 and as predicted by myself (I'm always right btw) that then rubbed off on our players and eventually it rubs off on the fans. We're then left with one big negative shite vibe when in reality the budget is adequate enough to compete.

Never before have I experienced a manager being so negative about our prosepects before a ball was kicked. He may not have outright said it, but his continual bleating on about the budget screamed 'I think we're doomed'. What kind of a way is that to motivate the players and supporters?

[Nowhereman]

14 hours ago, ThirdrockfromtheSon said:

IIRC We had 12,500 at the Killie game, and 10,000 at the Partick game.

I have three reports of the Thistle game and none of them quote a crowd. But the first game at Firhill had 8,000 so i would expect a midweek replay would be less than that. Kilmarnock game was just under 8000

[Jan Vojáček]

On the basis that we're already writing off this Saturday as a standard away defeat, it seems to me that the following two fixtures v Dunfermline (8th) and St. Mirren (10th) could make or break the current management team.

I expect them to get a lot more out of this group of players than what was witnessed against Ayr. Whilst I'm (very) cautiously coming round to the idea of League 1 football next season, it would be annoying to see us slip out the Championship feebly after competing so well over the last 5 years.

Make a fist of it and go down fighting.

I think you're right. If we don't take anything from those 3 games then we'll have just 1 point more than we had at the same point in the great escape season.

Still a lot of football between now and then, but that really hammers home what a poor position we are in - especially if Jack Ross can get St Mirren playing anywhere near as well as they should be with the squad they have.

[rockson]

6 hours ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

Never before have I experienced a manager being so negative about our prosepects before a ball was kicked.

Paul Martin spent a whole season saying we couldn't compete with the other teams in the division because they were full-time - and that was in a division one lower than where we are now.

 

[Howlin' Wilf]

8 hours ago, Nowhereman said:

I have three reports of the Thistle game and none of them quote a crowd. But the first game at Firhill had 8,000 so i would expect a midweek replay would be less than that. Kilmarnock game was just under 8000

From memory the Thistle game had about 5-6,000 there. Ian Wallace with the winner.

[maddog 1965]

21 hours ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

The fact Stevie was reminding us how tiny his budget was during every single interview should have had alarm bells ringing. The fact of the matter is that we don't have all that small a squad (despite the ludicrous chants of 18 players) and I don't believe for a minute that the budget is all that smaller than last year, minus maybe a Nade sized wage. After all the pissing and moaning we went out and recruited a decent crop of well paid players in Joe Thomson, Harvie, Stanton and Todd (expenses, obv).

It screamed to me that it was simply him trying to lower expectations and have us believe we were only able to afford to pay players peanuts (not true).

I also had a chat with a couple of players after the Clydebank game and the impression I got was that they were concerned about our prospects this season.

An air of negativity was present from day 1 and as predicted by myself (I'm always right btw) that then rubbed off on our players and eventually it rubs off on the fans. We're then left with one big negative shite vibe when in reality the budget is adequate enough to compete.

Never before have I experienced a manager being so negative about our prosepects before a ball was kicked. He may not have outright said it, but his continual bleating on about the budget screamed 'I think we're doomed'. What kind of a way is that to motivate the players and supporters?

So what is the way forward, how do you motivate a team and manager that think there doomed and are lying down to the opposition.

[Jan Vojáček]

Just now, maddog 1965 said:

So what is the way forward, how do you motivate a team and manager that think there doomed and are lying down to the opposition.

Welcome to P&B, take it you're a Sons fan?

I don't think anyone on here is well placed to provide an answer to that. If I stick my super cynical hat on I'll say that I don't Stevie really wants to be here; he overspent the budget last season, knew that this year would be more competitive without Alloa and Livi, and knew that his budget was going to be reduced (albeit not by as much as he's making out by all accounts), that's why he went for the Raith job whilst his reputation was still impressive.

Now he has got himself in a sticky situation whereby he didn't get the Raith job, he spent all of pre-season trying to lower fans' expectations by talking about how low the budget is, yet he signed players (presumably) not with the premise of "Sign for Dumbarton, we've got a tiny budget and will struggle to compete in this really tough league", but with something along the lines of "I'm really optimistic that we can finish mid-table, maybe even make a playoff challenge this season. Our main aim has to be staying up, however I'm more than confident we'll do that". His summer signings were mainly decent players, but once again we've been left with a mis-matched squad. We have very little upfront, no options at RB and no really creative centre-mids. Very much like last season.

I don't think for one moment that we are lying down to the opposition, nor has anyone suggested it (I don't think). I do think that the negativity pre-season will have got to the players however, and that may be one reason why things have been fairly dire this season.

The solution? In an ideal world probably a fresh start with a new manager. That's probably not possible however, and I fully accept that. In which case it falls on Aitken to get himself out of the hole that he spent a great deal of pre-season digging.

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

So what is the way forward, how do you motivate a team and manager that think there doomed and are lying down to the opposition.

Lying down to the opposition? That's absolutely not the case.

I'm not sure what the way forward is tbh. I certainly don't condone a knee jerk reaction and I certainly don't condone sticking with something that is failing spectacularly. It's about approaching it with a level head. You also have to take into consideration the financial side of things. Can we afford to pay off a manager and his staff? I'm not so sure tbh. Wilf makes a very good point about Stevies record in League 1 but again I'm not convinced his budget was as small as was made out at the time.

What I was getting at was that absolutely shite approach in pre-season and actively breeding negativity within the camp. Stevie reminded us would struggle that much and that our budget was so small that the players we're clearly thinking about the struggle before a ball was kicked.

I said at the time I didn't like it and I stand by that. Folk think we daft things like that don't matter but having a squad of players and supporter approaching a massive season with a hugely negative mindset is absolutely not the way to prepare.

Someone mentioned Paul Martin... that simply backs up my point. How did that pan out?

[Homer Sandoval]

22 minutes ago, Sonsteam of 08 said:

Welcome to P&B, take it you're a Sons fan?

I don't think anyone on here is well placed to provide an answer to that. If I stick my super cynical hat on I'll say that I don't Stevie really wants to be here; he overspent the budget last season, knew that this year would be more competitive without Alloa and Livi, and knew that his budget was going to be reduced (albeit not by as much as he's making out by all accounts), that's why he went for the Raith job whilst his reputation was still impressive.

Now he has got himself in a sticky situation whereby he didn't get the Raith job, he spent all of pre-season trying to lower fans' expectations by talking about how low the budget is, yet he signed players (presumably) not with the premise of "Sign for Dumbarton, we've got a tiny budget and will struggle to compete in this really tough league", but with something along the lines of "I'm really optimistic that we can finish mid-table, maybe even make a playoff challenge this season. Our main aim has to be staying up, however I'm more than confident we'll do that". His summer signings were mainly decent players, but once again we've been left with a mis-matched squad. We have very little upfront, no options at RB and no really creative centre-mids. Very much like last season.

I don't think for one moment that we are lying down to the opposition, nor has anyone suggested it (I don't think). I do think that the negativity pre-season will have got to the players however, and that may be one reason why things have been fairly dire this season.

The solution? In an ideal world probably a fresh start with a new manager. That's probably not possible however, and I fully accept that. In which case it falls on Aitken to get himself out of the hole that he spent a great deal of pre-season digging.

What is it about football fans that compel them to take success for granted? 

Is it simply the desire to see your team succeed that obscures the truth?

Once a club, in this case Dumbarton, enjoys a spell of relative success, expectations of fans rise and leave a high-water mark for the future. Unfortunately, the natural ebb and flow of success means that on-field performances do not always match expectations. 

Even with a small fan base, this success such as it is seems to have bred a sense of entitlement amongst the near suicidal Dumbarton supporters!

The source of all this anguish is not that the Sons are losing, but that they are failing to meet the expectations placed on them by a delusional fan base.

It's not Real Madrid that you guys support for crying out loud! A part-time, poorly resourced West of Scotland football club is going to have moments in the sun followed by prolonged periods of mediocrity. That said, the passion that he dwindling number of Sons fans show is admirable. I have two friends who are diehard Dumbarton supporters and I have a soft spot for the Sons. No doubt it's painful at the moment but lets face a few truths here.

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

What is it about football fans that compel them to take success for granted? 

Is it simply the desire to see your team succeed that obscures the truth?

Once a club, in this case Dumbarton, enjoys a spell of relative success, expectations of fans rise and leave a high-water mark for the future. Unfortunately, the natural ebb and flow of success means that on-field performances do not always match expectations. 

Even with a small fan base, this success such as it is seems to have bred a sense of entitlement amongst the near suicidal Dumbarton supporters!

The source of all this anguish is not that the Sons are losing, but that they are failing to meet the expectations placed on them by a delusional fan base.

It's not Real Madrid that you guys support for crying out loud! A part-time, poorly resourced West of Scotland football club is going to have moments in the sun followed by prolonged periods of mediocrity. That said, the passion that he dwindling number of Sons fans show is admirable. I have two friends who are diehard Dumbarton supporters and I have a soft spot for the Sons. No doubt it's painful at the moment but lets face a few truths here.

I'll bite.

A sense of entitlement? Unrealistic expections? Pish.

We expect to compete, we expect to be able to fight it out for survival. Currently we are failing in both categories (St Mirren are making one of them look better than they are). We are absolutely attrocious to watch, and the football is 1 dimensional and negative. It's hard to take any positives from our start to the season.

We haven't won an away game in almost a full cakendar year. How dare we expect better than that. Mediocrity I could almost accept, absolutely dreadful records like 1 win in 12 (incl 4 matches against lower league opposition) and no away win in a year I cannot.

You're acting like we expect to be finishing in the playoffs. And quite frankly, you're passing comment on something you have zero clue about.

[Jan Vojáček]

1 minute ago, Homer Sandoval said:

What is it about football fans that compel them to take success for granted? 

Is it simply the desire to see your team succeed that obscures the truth?

Once a club, in this case Dumbarton, enjoys a spell of relative success, expectations of fans rise and leave a high-water mark for the future. Unfortunately, the natural ebb and flow of success means that on-field performances do not always match expectations. 

Even with a small fan base, this success such as it is seems to have bred a sense of entitlement amongst the near suicidal Dumbarton supporters!

The source of all this anguish is not that the Sons are losing, but that they are failing to meet the expectations placed on them by a delusional fan base.

It's not Real Madrid that you guys support for crying out loud! A part-time, poorly resourced West of Scotland football club is going to have moments in the sun followed by prolonged periods of mediocrity. That said, the passion that he dwindling number of Sons fans show is admirable. I have two friends who are diehard Dumbarton supporters and I have a soft spot for the Sons. No doubt it's painful at the moment but lets face a few truths here.

A sense of entitlement? Nope, not sure anyone's said anything of the sort. I don't think anyone's taking the recent success for granted. Are we expecting to be Real Madrid? Nope. Again, I don't think anybody is being unrealistic in their expectations on here. 

We have won 1 game in our last 16. We haven't won an away game for almost a full calendar year. We aren't scoring goals. We aren't playing with any shape or gameplan. We aren't playing with much fight. We play the same tactics and formation every week. We haven't addressed the big issues with our squad from last season and, on Saturday, our manager made substitutions that every single man, woman and wean in the crowd could see were wrong. That's before we even start on the misty behind the scenes workings. The new stadium patter and the rather large issue of who actually owns the club.

Now, combine all those things and ask yourself if the fans should just be happy clapping along? Would you be quite content if it was your team in those circumstances? I'm young (very young compared to some of the posters on here...!) and I've already seen us relegated and promoted a good few times, I've seen us pumped by Elgin City and East Stirlingshire and I've seen us pump SPL bound Hamilton and beat the Scottish Cup winners twice in one season. That's more than quite a few football fans go through in their lifetime. I can remember being pleased when we didn't finish rock bottom of the old Third Division for Christ's sake so don't give me all the unrealistic expectations patter!

Our expectations at the start of the season were to stay up. The minimum expected was that we put up a good fight and, if we were to be relegated, went down fighting. At the moment we don't look like accomplishing either goal. Ask your two Sons supporting pals about things at the moment - I bet they don't expect us to be challenging for the playoffs at the right end, but I'd bet they'd expect us to be doing a hell of a lot better than we currently are.

[Homer Sandoval]

8 minutes ago, Sonsteam of 08 said:

Now, combine all those things and ask yourself if the fans should just be happy clapping along? Would you be quite content if it was your team in those circumstances? I'm young (very young compared to some of the posters on here...!) and I've already seen us relegated and promoted a good few times, I've seen us pumped by Elgin City and East Stirlingshire and I've seen us pump SPL bound Hamilton and beat the Scottish Cup winners twice in one season. That's more than quite a few football fans go through in their lifetime. I can remember being pleased when we didn't finish rock bottom of the old Third Division for Christ's sake so don't give me all the unrealistic expectations patter!

Take a breath son, take a breath.

As I said, your passion in particular is refreshing - good to read youngsters having a real affection for their team. You support Dumbarton and as your own words above prove, following a wee team has its moments of relative glory and despair. 

The present plight could be a lot worse. The win-less away run and league position could be in fourth tier, not the second, so all I'm suggesting is a bit of perspective. Nine games in the campaign have elasped, not thirty-six. A bit to go yet.

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

Take a breath son, take a breath.

As I said, your passion in particular is refreshing - good to read youngsters having a real affection for their team. You support Dumbarton and as your own words above prove, following a wee team has its moments of relative glory and despair. 

The present plight could be a lot worse. The win-less away run and league position could be in fourth tier, not the second, so all I'm suggesting is a bit of perspective. Nine games in the campaign have elasped, not thirty-six. A bit to go yet.

So are you suggesting we simply accept being shite because we are in the Championship and we are a smaller club?

[Homer Sandoval]

2 minutes ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

So are you suggesting we simply accept being shite because we are in the Championship and we are a smaller club?

 

Accept that that success for the Sons comes in cycles and maybe just maybe the particular loop is on a downward trend. It happens.