A night to celebrate

Goodness, Dumbarton not only took three points off Stenhousemuir with a 1-0 win at the Strathclyde Homes Stadium tonight, but, Denise Currie tells me in her text from the scene of the triumph, "shock... Sons... played well!" Things really are looking up, which is a good job, given my programme note (which will follow tomorrow). For me that's the really great news of the evening. But I was also delighted that Aberdeen bundled Scottish Cup holders Celtic out of the tournament thanks to Darren Mackie's second-half strike. I like to think that my earlier prediction of a Bhouys win in the light of their last-gasp equaliser at Pittodrie was the decisive factor. The Curse of Barrow working in reverse. Yeah, right. [Pic: (c) BBC]

Overall, it's been a good week or so. Rangers are the only remaining British team left in the EUFA Cup, though it has to be admitted that Werder Bremen were robbed. I was listening to the radio commentary, and it was as one-sided an encounter as you could imagine, with the Gers 2-0 home leg enough to take the tie 2-1 on aggregate, thanks to the Werder keeper's two howlers at Ibrox. Commiserations to Dundee United, however. I'd hoped against hope that they might take the Scottish League Cup off Rangers, but it was not to be. The Tangerines' chairman Eddie Thompson (profiled in the excellent When Saturday Comes magazine this month) has inoperable cancer. He's a good guy and it would lovely for his beloved DUFC to have picked up some silverware, but I'm sure they still did him proud.

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