Sons' sorrow

[Howlin' Wilf]

Not to mention Bruce's Cottages on Cardross Road.

They were known as Bruce's stables but in fact were much later constructions. Urban myth I'm afraid.

[johnny graham]

Brucehill was of course named after rab who for many years after he defeated the English ran a successful fish and chip shop on the site which is now napier crescent. Can we get back to moaning about gilbert again?

[Third Son from the Rock]

Brucehill was of course named after rab who for many years after he defeated the English ran a successful fish and chip shop on the site which is now napier crescent. Can we get back to moaning about gilbert again?

Good idea. Since he's come in, Dumbarton has been in decline. From our happy days in the third division here we are a few short years later in the Championship. From crowds of 736 a few years ago, we're now on around 742 despite the continuing turmoil on the park. This crazy scheme to get out of an 11 acre site in a residential area with planning vetos in place, to a 120 acre site ripe for development really takes the biscuit though. As for heritage and history, the tourists travelling north on the main west coast route will have had their fill of that stuff with all those brown signs directing them to sites associated with William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, Mary Queen of Scots, Jackie Stewart, Chic Halliday and Beanzy Harcourt.

Anyway, what about the following That's surely Gilbert on the left with Antonia next to him? Although the beard has been trimmed, I'm sure that's Allan Jardine at the other side with well known Dumbarton man Alistair McNab on the pipes. With Philip Differ on the main drum kit, this could be great half-time entertainment......

[Third Son from the Rock]

Perhaps, and it's interesting that you mention Ingliston Wilf, as I would hazard that the owners of a purpose-built luxury wedding view atop panoramic vistas of the River Clyde will no doubt be cacking themselves at the prospect of a rival establishment adjacent to a council refuse station and looking upwards and onto a 1970's housing scheme, complete with gaudy neon signage of Robert The Bruce. Ditto the Loch Lomond trade.

Ingliston's market for weddings extends to people with far too much money and Porsches with personal number plates, prepared to pay £100 a head. For that they'll get a starter of lark's tongues and tadpole's sphincters followed by 157g of Boef D'Ebola with wee dots of gravy and indeterminate red liquid with a side serving of a sprig of parsley and a carefully sculptured eighth of a maris piper potato. Pretty much the same at the Lodge on the Loch. Mind you I hear their vegetarian option of asparagus risotto benoncle is to die for.

[Frank Quitely]

Well no they won't of course. Because Ingliston is a five star facility and I'll bet they'll cater for very few if any wedding parties from Dumbarton. Simply the distance alone means that any development here won't be a rival - particularly not a three star standard of venue. But there's the thing, how well would Ingliston do in Dumbarton? Correct me if I'm wrong Frank but didn't you pooh-pooh the idea of a country club in Dumbarton a few posts back? You can't have it all ways.

I wonder if you have visited the Lake District ? About a mile off the M6 en route to the Lake District, in a very ordinary location is the Rheged Centre http://www.rheged.com/ which does conferences and events, weddings, it has a kids' soft play, a cinema, restaurants, some shops and a filling station. Oh aye and there's the historical aspect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheged but I'm sure Rheged is much more of a recognised name than that of Robert the Bruce.

As I have said before, there are many questions to be asked here and until the funding aspects become clearer, it's hard for anyone to make a decision on whether this would be a good thing for the club or not. I think there is plenty of potential and merit in aspects of the plan though and if the location of the club is to be adjacent to retail and tourism, on the periphery of a national park with good transport links, that could be preferable to being stuck in the middle a residential area in a cul de sac.

But it might not. I don't know.

I'm just considering the possibilities of the info we have and acknowledging that there may be some, rather than the kind of self doubt and loathing which was recently such a feature of the 'No' campaign.

I know of two this year at Ingliston involving Dumbarton residents, and I've personally attended one at Lodge on the Loch and one at Ross Priory. Other than the ones at BBS in 2014 I know of none in Dumbarton, including the Abbotsford and Dumbuck hotels. The wedding trade has taken up residence elsewhere.

But that's hardly the point. We are being presented with a brick wrapped in fancy wrapping paper, and that wrapping paper has depictions of weddings, hotels, garden centres and retail and tourism developments; it's not the public who are peddling this stuff. Let me repeat; Dumbarton FC has no pressing need to relocate anywhere and although there are limitations to what can and cannot be done at the present site, what is being presented and the opaque funding process surrounding it is for me far, far too much of a risky adventure.

Are Morton desperate to move ? Forfar ? Brechin ? QoS ? Raith ? Not that I've noticed, but I have seen that Stirling Albion attract the same 523 souls of a Saturday as they did at Annfield but in the interim the club almost went tits up. Ditto Airdrie. So why are we mad keen ? Well it's Brabco of course, but just because they present an an admittedly well-constructed vision of a future, but almost certainly not DFC's, doesn't mean that everyone should just roll over. Had that been the case, in recent times we'd have had a Sherriff Court on The Common and a new secondary school being constructed on Posties Park.

Brabco's desire to turn a coin and the Council's desire to gain Council Tax from (yet more) new housing should not deter us all from applying rigour. We keep hearing about DFC being a 'bad neighbour' - can anyone show an official document which features that phrase ? Has an application for any sort of expansion or alteration at BBS ever actually been submitted and rejected by WDC ? Well, let us all see the evidence and we can accept it.

There are lots of issues to be covered and gaps to be filled in before we should literally head towards a brave but unknown new world in a God-forsaken location. Brabco's interests and intentions may well overlap that of the supporters and shareholders but there has to be a thorough prosecution before we are at that stage. Sooner or later we may be be back in the lower divisions - I hope not, but we need to face the possibility - whither DFC and it's situation then ?

[The Moonster]

But the club wouldn't be in the tourism industry. In what way did you think they would?

I'm not here to debate the semantics of who's running the thing, we are proposing building this and there is absolutely no reason for a small part-time club to undertake this other than to fill out a proposal.

Good idea. Since he's come in, Dumbarton has been in decline. From our happy days in the third division here we are a few short years later in the Championship. From crowds of 736 a few years ago, we're now on around 742 despite the continuing turmoil on the park. This crazy scheme to get out of an 11 acre site in a residential area with planning vetos in place, to a 120 acre site ripe for development really takes the biscuit though.

Any evidence of the planning veto's for the current site? From what I hear we've not even looked at it.

Success on the pitch doesn't mean we can let them run wild off it. But aye, let's just dive straight in and see what we end up with.

[Nowhereman]

I know of two this year at Ingliston involving Dumbarton residents, and I've personally attended one at Lodge on the Loch and one at Ross Priory. Other than the ones at BBS in 2014 I know of none in Dumbarton, including the Abbotsford and Dumbuck hotels. The wedding trade has taken up residence elsewhere.

But that's hardly the point. We are being presented with a brick wrapped in fancy wrapping paper, and that wrapping paper has depictions of weddings, hotels, garden centres and retail and tourism developments; it's not the public who are peddling this stuff. Let me repeat; Dumbarton FC has no pressing need to relocate anywhere and although there are limitations to what can and cannot be done at the present site, what is being presented and the opaque funding process surrounding it is for me far, far too much of a risky adventure.

Are Morton desperate to move ? Forfar ? Brechin ? QoS ? Raith ? Not that I've noticed, but I have seen that Stirling Albion attract the same 523 souls of a Saturday as they did at Annfield but in the interim the club almost went tits up. Ditto Airdrie. So why are we mad keen ? Well it's Brabco of course, but just because they present an an admittedly well-constructed vision of a future, but almost certainly not DFC's, doesn't mean that everyone should just roll over. Had that been the case, in recent times we'd have had a Sherriff Court on The Common and a new secondary school being constructed on Posties Park.

Brabco's desire to turn a coin and the Council's desire to gain Council Tax from (yet more) new housing should not deter us all from applying rigour. We keep hearing about DFC being a 'bad neighbour' - can anyone show an official document which features that phrase ? Has an application for any sort of expansion or alteration at BBS ever actually been submitted and rejected by WDC ? Well, let us all see the evidence and we can accept it.

There are lots of issues to be covered and gaps to be filled in before we should literally head towards a brave but unknown new world in a God-forsaken location. Brabco's interests and intentions may well overlap that of the supporters and shareholders but there has to be a thorough prosecution before we are at that stage. Sooner or later we may be be back in the lower divisions - I hope not, but we need to face the possibility - whither DFC and it's situation then ?

There is a slight difference between objecting to a local authority's plans and trying to prevent a private company doing something. While I agree that there is no pressing need for Dumbarton FC to move you cannot escape the fact that this has always been the owners' plan. If it does not happen they will presumably continue to look for a way out. We will end up with unwilling owners who will take no interest and provide no investment and that is hardly in the football club's best interests.

[Howlin' Wilf]

Well the main planning veto for the current site is that no-one will ever invest in it other than for housing.

Historic Scotland exercised a few vetos during the building of the stadium, the main one being that they wouldn't accept a stand facing the Rock. That is why the stand was built where it is. Now you have several hundred households in the vicinity, each of which could object to any planning application submitted. The Council would be highly likely to veto any application because of the residential nature of the area and the parking ratio. See my comments about a temporary stand some time ago.

There is as much chance as shit from a rocking horse that a hotel company would site a Premier Inn/Travelodge type place so far from a main road and the local plan rules out any retail development.

I can't say this is evidence in the documentary sense, neither, as Bertrand Russell pointed out, can someone prove that there isn't a teapot in orbit of the sun between earth and Mars.

[Howlin' Wilf]

I know of two this year at Ingliston involving Dumbarton residents, and I've personally attended one at Lodge on the Loch and one at Ross Priory. Other than the ones at BBS in 2014 I know of none in Dumbarton, including the Abbotsford and Dumbuck hotels. The wedding trade has taken up residence elsewhere.

But that's hardly the point. We are being presented with a brick wrapped in fancy wrapping paper, and that wrapping paper has depictions of weddings, hotels, garden centres and retail and tourism developments; it's not the public who are peddling this stuff. Let me repeat; Dumbarton FC has no pressing need to relocate anywhere and although there are limitations to what can and cannot be done at the present site, what is being presented and the opaque funding process surrounding it is for me far, far too much of a risky adventure.

Are Morton desperate to move ? Forfar ? Brechin ? QoS ? Raith ? Not that I've noticed, but I have seen that Stirling Albion attract the same 523 souls of a Saturday as they did at Annfield but in the interim the club almost went tits up. Ditto Airdrie. So why are we mad keen ? Well it's Brabco of course, but just because they present an an admittedly well-constructed vision of a future, but almost certainly not DFC's, doesn't mean that everyone should just roll over. Had that been the case, in recent times we'd have had a Sherriff Court on The Common and a new secondary school being constructed on Posties Park.

Brabco's desire to turn a coin and the Council's desire to gain Council Tax from (yet more) new housing should not deter us all from applying rigour. We keep hearing about DFC being a 'bad neighbour' - can anyone show an official document which features that phrase ? Has an application for any sort of expansion or alteration at BBS ever actually been submitted and rejected by WDC ? Well, let us all see the evidence and we can accept it.

There are lots of issues to be covered and gaps to be filled in before we should literally head towards a brave but unknown new world in a God-forsaken location. Brabco's interests and intentions may well overlap that of the supporters and shareholders but there has to be a thorough prosecution before we are at that stage. Sooner or later we may be be back in the lower divisions - I hope not, but we need to face the possibility - whither DFC and it's situation then ?

No-one, least of all me is recommending a hook, line and sinker approach to this proposed development. There are serious questions to be asked that not even the proposed developers could answer at this stage, due to land prices, the economy etc. So you are quite right to apply rigour and so we should. 'Dumbarton FC has no pressing need to relocate anywhere' is a true statement on its own. However what about Dumbarton FC has a pressing need to increase its income and relocation may, I repeat may be a way of doing that?

The reason people choose the BBS for weddings is mainly the capacity. There is no other wedding/function venue in Dumbarton which holds more than 200. James at the Abbotsford has lost out because of lack of capacity but also because his function rooms are on the first floor, although I have attended two weddings there in recent years - both small affairs and not the typical Dumbarton large family scenario. The Dumbuck hasn't just been deserted by the wedding trade........

How was your meal at Lodge on the Loch? not a patch on Robert Sloan I'm willing to bet and from what I hear about double the cost and charges added (£60 for a room for the bride and groom to change) at every turn.

Anyway enough of all this. Here's hoping we can get something out of our trip to Livingston.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Howlin' Wilf

[The Moonster]

There is a slight difference between objecting to a local authority's plans and trying to prevent a private company doing something. While I agree that there is no pressing need for Dumbarton FC to move you cannot escape the fact that this has always been the owners' plan. If it does not happen they will presumably continue to look for a way out. We will end up with unwilling owners who will take no interest and provide no investment and that is hardly in the football club's best interests.

How much investment have Brabco put in (aside from buying the club from Rankine)? Genuine question, I have no idea as to what they've invested in the club. How interested are Brabco in DFC (the football club, not it's assets)?

Well the main planning veto for the current site is that no-one will ever invest in it other than for housing.

Historic Scotland exercised a few vetos during the building of the stadium, the main one being that they wouldn't accept a stand facing the Rock. That is why the stand was built where it is. Now you have several hundred households in the vicinity, each of which could object to any planning application submitted. The Council would be highly likely to veto any application because of the residential nature of the area and the parking ratio. See my comments about a temporary stand some time ago.

There is as much chance as shit from a rocking horse that a hotel company would site a Premier Inn/Travelodge type place so far from a main road and the local plan rules out any retail development.

I can't say this is evidence in the documentary sense, neither, as Bertrand Russell pointed out, can someone prove that there isn't a teapot in orbit of the sun between earth and Mars.

So, there isn't any evidence of veto's, just assumptions.

[The Moonster]

However what about Dumbarton FC has a pressing need to increase its income and relocation may, I repeat may be a way of doing that?

Are we skint?

[aftershocker]

another point just to lob into the debate...what happens if the proposed move falls through? Do Brabco say f*ck you DFC and offload us...sometimes its better the devil you know given some recent troubles at other clubs - Rankine....Charles Green etc

[Sweet Pete]

No-one, least of all me is recommending a hook, line and sinker approach to this proposed development. There are serious questions to be asked that not even the proposed developers could answer at this stage, due to land prices, the economy etc. So you are quite right to apply rigour and so we should. 'Dumbarton FC has no pressing need to relocate anywhere' is a true statement on its own. However what about Dumbarton FC has a pressing need to increase its income and relocation may, I repeat may be a way of doing that?

The reason people choose the BBS for weddings is mainly the capacity. There is no other wedding/function venue in Dumbarton which holds more than 200. James at the Abbotsford has lost out because of lack of capacity but also because his function rooms are on the first floor, although I have attended two weddings there in recent years - both small affairs and not the typical Dumbarton large family scenario. The Dumbuck hasn't just been deserted by the wedding trade........

How was your meal at Lodge on the Loch? not a patch on Robert Sloan I'm willing to bet and from what I hear about double the cost and charges added (£60 for a room for the bride and groom to change) at every turn.

Anyway enough of all this. Here's hoping we can get something out of our trip to Livingston.

I got married at the Rock and Robert did a fine job with the food, sadly though his catering was overshadowed by his attempt at shady business practices and when I point blank refused to be held to ransom his level of service dropped and his attitude raised. This isn't the place to go into detail, but suffice to say I have met other people who got married there who had similar experiences and our venue decorators had many stories of their own about run ins with him.

[Frank Quitely]

There is a slight difference between objecting to a local authority's plans and trying to prevent a private company doing something. While I agree that there is no pressing need for Dumbarton FC to move you cannot escape the fact that this has always been the owners' plan. If it does not happen they will presumably continue to look for a way out. We will end up with unwilling owners who will take no interest and provide no investment and that is hardly in the football club's best interests.

Er, I think we may already be there. But at least we are now away from the diversionary candyfloss of wedding venues and tourist attractions.

Elsewhere Wilf mentioned increasing income; now that's an interesting point for it seems to me that even in our present confinement we are not maximising what may be available, because:-

1. We do not employ a Commercial or Marketing Manager.
2. We have a somewhat patchy record in customer relations.
3. We do not seem to 'do' offers, deals or promotions.
4. Following on from 2. and 3. we seem to expect the world to beat a path to DFC.
5. Our support consists of diehards, and we cannot attract casual custom.

But you know and I know that this matters hee-haw to those currently proposing the move on the premise of increasing revenue, and yet therein lies a paradox. Because if you don't begin to address the points above and others like them then it will matter f**k all if you relocate to St Tropez or Bondi Beach, if the same attitudes and experiences persist the outcome will be identical. But you may well be mired in debt with half your support evaporated.

Just a thought.

[Howlin' Wilf]

Er, I think we may already be there. But at least we are now away from the diversionary candyfloss of wedding venues and tourist attractions.

Elsewhere Wilf mentioned increasing income; now that's an interesting point for it seems to me that even in our present confinement we are not maximising what may be available, because:-

1. We do not employ a Commercial or Marketing Manager.
2. We have a somewhat patchy record in customer relations.
3. We do not seem to 'do' offers, deals or promotions.
4. Following on from 2. and 3. we seem to expect the world to beat a path to DFC.
5. Our support consists of diehards, and we cannot attract casual custom.

But you know and I know that this matters hee-haw to those currently proposing the move on the premise of increasing revenue, and yet therein lies a paradox. Because if you don't begin to address the points above and others like them then it will matter f**k all if you relocate to St Tropez or Bondi Beach, if the same attitudes and experiences persist the outcome will be identical. But you may well be mired in debt with half your support evaporated.

Just a thought

Some valid points there although I'm not sure all the pieces fit......

[Howlin' Wilf]

I got married at the Rock and Robert did a fine job with the food, sadly though his catering was overshadowed by his attempt at shady business practices and when I point blank refused to be held to ransom his level of service dropped and his attitude raised. This isn't the place to go into detail, but suffice to say I have met other people who got married there who had similar experiences and our venue decorators had many stories of their own about run ins with him.

Surprised I must say. We had our silver wedding there and I thought everything was top notch.

[Jan Vojáček]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC457DhpUwPGAC-DYLUayUhg

On another note, SonsTV has returned seemingly. Found it by accident.

[rockson]

Sooner or later we may be be back in the lower divisions - I hope not, but we need to face the possibility - whither DFC and it's situation then ?

I hope not too but it's almost a certainty.

[Jan Vojáček]

From the USA U21s 1-0 Ireland U21s game today's match report.

[Sweet Pete]

Play Rogers up front next week.