Wednesday 6th May 2020
TWENTY years ago today, we played at Boghead Park for the last time, in order to move into our current home in the shadow of Dumbarton Rock.
Having played there for all bar the first seven years of our history, we said farewell to the ground on a day which could hardly have gone any better.
Over 3,000 people packed into Boghead in glorious sunshine to see Dumbarton beat East Fife 2-1.
After falling behind, second half goals by Toby King and Joe Robertson enabled us to sign off with a win.
The result was also very well received by Forfar Athletic, who took advantage of East Fife’s defeat by overtaking them to win promotion.
The game was Tweeted ‘as live’ on our Twitter page a few weeks ago, on one of the blank Saturday afternoons enforced on us during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Supporters have been invited to share memories of their first, last and favourite games at Boghead via our Facebook and Twitter social media channels.
To mark the occasion, we are also publishing ‘Boghead’ by our club poet Stephen Watt, which we first printed in our match programme against Hearts on Saturday, September 13 2014.
The poem won third prize in a national poetry competition called ‘The Pride and The Passion’, hosted by Derby County FC.
Boghead
by Stephen Watt
Glorious, crumbling Miller Street entrance,
with your skinny turnstiles causing problems
for anyone with an unhealthy lifestyle.
Here lay an alternative to the antidepressants.
Behind the goals, we were protagonist champions
in offering support, opinions, wrapped in knitted
black and yellow vestments for neither warmth
or comfort; our club’s stalwart ever-presents.
Dead bluebottles stuck in the small stand’s windows
where flakes of stale pie rained above the tunnel.
Smuggled quarter bottles rustled inside pockets,
suckled when constables became semi-conscious,
seconds before the merciful half-time whistle.
The unofficial changing of the ends; supporters
exchanging insults, but the unlikeliest of friends
when it came to the crackling tannoy results.
We revelled mostly in the Scottish Cup upsets.
Fans lived for superstitions, omens,
the replication of emotions on the castle’s blazons;
McQuade-twists, Gibson tap-ins, Mooney chips,
Charnley explosions; whoever the opponents,
so long as Dumbarton shred them into ribbons.
Boghead, we lived through so many divisions
until a new Millennium bulldozed your bricks.
Now I keep my lovesick colours behind fastened buttons,
and a yardstick of adoration for a lifetime of following Sons.
Stephen also has another poem, written specially, which we will publish here next Wednesday to honour another special anniversary. We’ll get back to you on that one!
Meantime, log on to our social media channels to share your best memories of Boghead, and we’ll publish some of them here on our club website later today.