Catching up...

Yes, I know, it's been ages. Almost six months, to be precise. Some of you may have wondered whether OnlyJustOffside has died. No, it's just been the victim of circumstance - namely a rather crazy work (and life) schedule. Over the next week or so I hope to get up to speed again: particularly curating my Sons View columns, a few newspaper pieces, reports and summaries from the Dumbarton FC site, Changing Scottish Football material, and more. But I'll have to squeeze that in between paid work and other priorities. Hopefully though, "watch this space" will gradually give way to "watch this filled space".

Gloriously behind...

No, not Dumbarton in the Irn Bru SFL Second Division (though that too), but me in terms of reproducing match reports and summaries, posts from Changing Scottish Football and other bits of football writing (Sunday Post et al) here.

I'll try to have a proper 'catch up' next week.
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Welcome to the winter break

So here we go again. Postponements of postponements, lost revenues for those who can afford it least, fixture pile-ups, wasted journeys, twiddling thumbs, and misery for all involved. Yet the 'traditionalists' will tell us that all this is far better than the horror of 'summer football' (that is, a March-October season for the lower leagues in Scotland, akin to what appears to be working quite well in Ireland and elsewhere). I confess, I just don't get it anymore. The issue isn't whether we have a winter break. We get one every year, in case you hadn't noticed! The only difference is that under the current denial-based set-up, we get it on the worst possible terms with little predictability or control. Madness.

In the old days (a.k.a. the '70s), I quite enjoyed watching matchstick men chasing an orange bauble around a snowbound pitch. But we now live in a risk-averse (and, more to the point, litigious) world where even a playable pitch is not enough if there is ice on the streets around the stadium. With a heroic effort, three dozen volunteers working all night and a highly cooperative local authority, Alloa Athletic performed wonders with their plastic pitch to put on the only football match in Scotland, against Peterhead, on Saturday. But national attention and the 600 who turned up aside, it isn't a credible strategy for facing up to worsening winters. Bring on reform... and, I suppose, the flying pigs.

Picture: Brechin's ground covered in snow, minus the planned match with Dumbarton on 4 December. The fixture has been replanned for the 14th. If it goes ahead, I won't be there because of work commitments. But I wouldn't be holding my breath anyway. Image courtesy of DFC.
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