Sunday 12th September 2021
GREGOR BUCHANAN emerges from the dressing room and freely admits: “I don’t know what’s going on.”
Which seems almost reasonable, given that he’s already beaten his entire goal tally for his first two seasons with Dumbarton.
When we are almost two months into the competitive season and he, as a centre half, is a joint top goalscorer.
And when his second and third goals in two games have just helped Sons to beat East Fife 5-0.
Nobody minds at all, though. It’s the first double of the centre half’s career and he assures the club website that if Dumbarton had been given a penalty, he’d have been charging up to take it for his hat-trick.
It looks as if Ryan McGeever faces a battle to be top scoring centre half at the club this season, although he did get a goal of his own against the Fifers to put him two behind Gregor on that front.
But it’s action at the other end of the pitch which pleases the double goalscorer more at the end of a brilliant afternoon for Sons.
Speaking to www.dumbartonfootballclub.com, Gregor said: “The two of us are just pleased with the clean sheet – that’s the most important job on a Saturday and any extra goals are a bonus.
“To get three between us is brilliant.
“To be fair, I got in the right position to go in there (for his second goal on the day). The boy’s pulling me down and it’s bashed off both of us and gone in.
“I was scrapping for every corner and got the chance to notch a couple. If we’d been awarded a penalty then 100 per cent, I’d have been on it. I’d have pulled everyone away.
“Waiting for the game was one of the situations where you want the games to keep coming but also time to work on things we needed to iron out.
“It was a good three points at Montrose although not a perfect performance and every our we can get on the training pitch is valuable for us.
“We can look at any issues we may have had, and we did that after the Montrose game, and so maybe the extra couple of days did it for us.”
Now it is on to a ground Gregor knows well – the Falkirk Stadium to play its eponymous occupants who are level with Sons on 10 points.
He admitted he felt some sympathy for East Fife after Saturday’s game, but is in no mood to exercise any mercy against the Bairns.
He added: “East Fife are a good side who always challenge around the top area of the league. I feel for them a bit as they’ve lost a few players.
“But you can only deal with what’s on the pitch in front of you, and we did that very well today.
“We know that Falkirk also are a good side with good facilities, but it’s just another game for us.
“We need to look at going there and seeing how we can get something from that game, and if we do that we’ll be in a good place.”
Andy Galloway