LET’S just know him as Colin, shall we?
The big, tall guy who, unless anything goes wrong for him or Cowdenbeath, will wear the opposition number nine shirt at the Rock on Saturday?
He’s guaranteed to attract attention. Returning players do. But the circumstances of Colin’s departure suggest there may be a little more edge to this one. Ian Murray brought him to Dumbarton hoping he could get goals. Now he’s anxious to see that he doesn’t.
Throughout his 16-month stay at the club, Colin was the Marmite of the Sons squad. The Jedward, the dancing John Sergeant. Either loved or hated, and while he always brought something to the party, it wasn’t always clear what. For the glass half full brigade, he was a valuable part of the team, whose aerial presence was always dangerous for opponents and could chip in the odd goal. To others, he didn’t contribute enough, and if he spent as much time competing for the ball and scoring goals as he did moaning at team-mates or referees, he’d really get somewhere. Players at the Rock have polarised opinion before, some do so who are still there now and fans will argue over the merits of certain players until we all pack up and go home for good. However, Colin divided opinions to a degree not seen in some time.
Even his arrival at the Rock, ahead of a home game against Morton in August 2013, generated discussion. Six years earlier this guy had been one half of Scotland’s deadliest strike combination who fired Kilmarnock to the League Cup final. So how had the other half ended up being a first pick for Everton and Scotland, while his strike partner was going part-time for the first occasion in his career with Dumbarton? Had it not been for Colin’s long-standing friendship with manager Murray, chances are a move to Sons wouldn’t even have entered his thoughts. Instead, a debut goal, Sons’ second in a 3-1 win over the Greenock club, endeared him to the fans to some extent straight away.
More goals surely would follow – why wouldn’t they from a striker who had spent so long playing at the highest level in Scotland? But Christmas arrived with one of two things on the wishlist of many associated with Sons – Colin’s second goal for the club (that goal against Morton still being his only one), or a ticket out of there. For many, it was the former. As long as anyone is out there in the white, black and gold shirt, they are desperately wished well by the Rock faithful. However, already some cracks were showing in his stay at the club. There could be no better example than a 2-1 defeat at Raith Rovers in December 2013, a game played in a howling gale. Even above the wind, Murray could be heard by those in the North Stand at Stark’s Park suggesting from the dugout that Colin may wish to improve his game or risk being substituted. Words to that effect, anyway. For the record, he stayed on to the final whistle.
That game at Kirkcaldy wasn’t as close as the scoreline makes it sound. It was a day when Sons, with the wind advantage, handed Raith two second half goals and only registered a last-minute Steven McDougall effort as consolation. It was occasions like these when Colin hardly thrived. Referees, who sometimes treated him more than a little harshly (his sending off in a 4-1 defeat to Dundee in October 2013 a perfect case in point) would often get the brunt of his frustration. So too would team-mates whose passes didn’t find him exactly where he was standing.
But a New Year of 2014 saw better fortunes, at least in the short term. Only 11 days into the year, Colin’s goal drought was ended when he found the net in a 4-2 win at Cowdenbeath. Then, in early February, came a real high point in his time at the club, with two goals, big ones for different reasons, within a few days. His lobbed shot in a 2-2 midweek draw with Livingston was a real gem – the kind of finish only such a seasoned campaigner can deliver. Then, three days later, his goal at Alloa, the only one of the game, gave the club its first Scottish Cup quarter final place since 1979. When he made it three goals in four games with a close range finish in a 3-3 draw at home to Raith Rovers, was the drought over? All Sons and Daughters of the Rock hoped so. Even though he was still prone to the odd dose of frustration, he was now finding the net.
Only then he wasn’t doing so again. Up to the end of February, Sons were unbeaten in 2014. Then defeats set in, and as the going got tough for the team, frustration grew once more for Colin. It would be April, back at Stark’s Park, before he scored his next goal, diverting a Mark Gilhaney shot into the net to clinch a 3-1 victory over the Raith Rovers side who won the Challenge Cup the previous week. Two weeks later came another high. With the home match against potential title winners Hamilton Accies balanced at 1-1, his close range header put Sons ahead in a game they went on to win 4-1.
With Chris Kane being the only Sons player to score in the season’s finale, a 2-1 defeat at Dundee, Colin’s season ended with seven goals in around 30 games. The perfect example of why he split opinions – was that a good enough return for a striker who had spent so much time at higher levels? Then again, at the start of the 21st century Andy Brown played much the same game as Colin did – not always a regular scorer but capable of aerial threat and setting up chances. He was certainly popular enough. But when things didn’t go his way, his reaction was different.
Due to Colin’s post as the club’s under-20 coach it was near certain that he would sign on at the Rock again during the close season, and duly he did so. But expectations would be higher. With Hearts, Rangers and Hibernian all coming into the league, he’d be one of the players Sons would look to for big game experience. After all, he had spent most of his career playing against that calibre of opposition week in, week out, some of that while wearing Hibs’ colours. Apart from close season defensive signings David Van Zanten and Lee Mair, no-one else in the squad could boast such extensive experience in the atmospheres of Tynecastle, Ibrox and Easter Road.
However, scoring goals was a problem from the off in season 2014/15. Going into a home match against Alloa on the last Saturday of September, Sons had scored more goals in three cup ties (five) than they had in six league outings (four). One of those Championship goals was scored by Bilel Mohsni, who was wearing a Rangers jersey at the time, while Kane, who returned at the end of August, had taken only three games to make himself the club’s top league scorer with two. Winless ahead of facing the Wasps, the importance of finding the shooting boots was not lost on Colin or anyone at Sons.
Both he and the team delivered in a 3-1 victory where Colin scored the clinching third. But that wasn’t the end of the goal drought. In the next six fixtures, Dumbarton’s only goal was a Garry Fleming effort at Tynecastle, which meant a lot to the player and was well-worked, but was ultimately meaningless in a 5-1 defeat to Hearts. And as before, when the going gets tough, Colin cuts a frustrated figure. Even after a 2-1 victory at Livingston, he still sat on one goal, and would do so until the last Saturday of the year, opening the scoring in a 3-1 win at Cowdenbeath. A day when Sons produced their best performance of the season to date. So did the transition into 2015 mean the same thing as before – New Year, new fortunes for Colin?
In the end, it could scarcely have been a more polar opposite. Defeats to Rangers and Hearts brought one goal each for Sons, but neither of them scored by Colin. Then, away to Raith Rovers, his inclusion as a substitute was not entirely unexpected but his non-participation in the match certainly was. With Sons chasing the game in the late stages, Murray chose to keep Colin on the bench to the bitter end of a game which, similarly to December 2013, they lost 2-1. It was explained in the matchday programme against Livingston the next Saturday that he’d been suffering from illness – nothing wrong with that, a perfectly plausible explanation. However, by the time many supporters read those comments, word had spread that the striker was on his way out. The next day, it was confirmed that he had cancelled his contract, and soon after he rolled up at Cowdenbeath, where he’d scored in his last two visits for Dumbarton.
But the most telling aspect of Colin’s departure? The one which gave it away that things had fallen right through between him and the club?
When players do leave, they are generally wished all the best on the club website. He wasn’t. A simple statement said that he’d left, gave a resume of his career to date, and that was that.
On Saturday he’ll roll up at the Rock again. No doubt there will be a reception awaiting him. It’s to be expected. But the best thing Sons can do? Forget who he is and treat Cowden like any other opposition. A case of Colin Who, if you like – just like the text of this article, which doesn’t mention his full name. He’s just another opponent, who will have 10 team-mates on the day who are all allowed to compete like he is. Even if he is a player who split the Sons crowd right down the middle.
Another such player was Paddy Flannery, whose sole visit to the Rock as an opposition player was certainly one to remember for various reasons. He lined up for Stenhousemuir at the start and was promptly substituted at half time, with the Warriors already 3-0 down and eventually losing 4-0. There are exceptions, of course – matches with Iain Russell in opposition are generally anticipated with trepidation due to the striker’s inexplicable habit of scoring past his former club. However, when Derek Carcary, Sons’ former talisman, returned to the Rock as a Brechin City player, he was on the receiving end of a 4-2 defeat. It’s swings and roundabouts with former players coming back in opposition.
But this particular swing/roundabout shouldn’t get in the way of one key element – the need for Sons to take full points. A win won’t seal any deal in terms of survival – but at the two-thirds mark of the season, wouldn’t it be good to have an 11-point lead over the team in second bottom spot? Certainly a lot better than it would with another result, which no-one at Sons wants to entertain the thought of.
This correspondent, on more than one occasion, was asked on the way to Falkirk a fortnight ago – who’s going to get the goals? Answer – they already have players who can do that. They did so last season. There’s no point in naming individuals – these players know who they are and will be nothing less than determined to add to their goal tally. And the display against the Bairns, while not a winning one in the end, certainly offered hope. Fleming is also guaranteed to return from suspension and there’s the possibility that another three players – at least two of whom can be goalscorers on their day – could be back from injury.
There’s life in Sons’ season yet. And on Saturday, whether a former player in opposition is wished all the best, it would be great to see his return marked in the same way as Flannery’s was.
There would be no division of opinion there.
The Dumbarton Terrace 