Howlin' Wilf

That figures. A pal of Rankine's.

Eh. I think I made that point when I made my point. We should be doing very much better, with bigger travelling supports now, than we did then. It isn't happening.

Here's a list of average attendances over recent years. Looks like we've lost support when you look at the second division average in 2003-04 when there weren't nearly so many away fans.

He produced it and performed on it but he didn't write it. It was 'The Warrior' from the musical Ipi Tombi (performed above by Osibisa).

So help ma boab! I was only talking in terms of a stock order - ie more stock of the type that had indeed sold out. If a board of directors/chief exec cannae do that properly, Gawd help us with the rather more complex duties of running a fitba club.

We were both wrong it was a 2-0 defeat at Falkirk.

Maybe. That would be odd as well though. Surely the ordering of merchandise is self financing if the stock sells?

Pretty much this. In 2012 the bounce never happened until Murray arrived. I recall when Murray couldn't make it to a game v Falkirk, due to the birth of his son, Ross took charge and we had a 4-1 defeat. This doesn't of course prove anything except that Ross changed a settled team and formation that night. As for his dismissal at Hearts, did the club favour the other party? If so they may have been looking for a reason to get rid. All speculation of course but it will take a manager of special ability to rescue Alloa. I wish him well.

It seems a bit odd to give someone the title of commercial director if he doesn't have control over that aspect of the club. I'm not getting at Alan at all. He's as dedicated a director of the club as I can recall. It doesn't make sense though, if the relatively mundane task of ordering merchandise is a reserved power.

I may be a bit of a pedant but I think you're referring to a pennant and not a pendant.

I understand that the Trust is already in charge of commercial activity. Alan Findlay is Commercial Director isn't he?

As a supporter of 45 years, here's my tuppence worth. In the 70s Dumbarton's attendances were roughly equivalent to Morton, Falkirk, Dunfermline and the likes. This was simply because the club had awoken from 50 years in the lower leagues and progressed to the top league and because football was still out there on its own as the preferred weekend entertainment of man and boy. After being relegated or 'reconstructed' in the mid 70s, despite the club always being in the top tier of the 'First division' or second tier, crowds dwindled and they did so much more so at Dumbarton than the other clubs mentioned above. This was never more evident than in the Premier League campaign of 1984/85 where we struggled to attract 2500 for games against an Aberdeen team managed by Alex Ferguson containing Leighton, Miller, McLeish and Strachan and had won a European trophy. That season Dumbarton had the lowest ever premier league crowd of about 950 for a match v Morton, a record only beaten around 20 years later by Gretna in their Fir Park days. It is a deep seated problem and one which has only shown sporadic anomalies to a general downward trend. Yes, a more proactive and public facing administration would help in a marginal way. Yes, initiatives like some that have been mentioned would help in a small way too. Posters advertising for games in local businesses? It has been happening for nearly 15 years! Donald Fullarton does them faithfully and the businesses who display them keep the club in the public eye. Clubs like the Sons are struggling every bit as hard to survive as local independent shops are. There may not even be an answer to getting more fans along - it could be that we are witnessing the last hurrah for clubs who can't entice 1000 fans through the gate. If there is a way forward it is definitely getting younger people interested. That could start with some positive vibes emanating from the club. I haven't noticed many recently. The heady trip to Aberdeen with a travelling support of more than 650 and the Murray masks seems pretty long ago.

That's fair enough. The thing is that the POTY night is just such a night and isn't centred on fundraising. The Quiz is reasonably priced too. However these nights can be hard to sell too. Yer man OK3 was working behind the scenes for the Quiz to raise teams this year. I've been unable to go the last two years because of other commitments - and that is the first problem that organisers hit. People are doing so many other things. To attract former players in significant numbers, I don't think the equivalent of a night down the pub would cut it.

Having been chairman of both the Craig Brittain Testimonial Committee and the Gordon Lennon Memorial fund I can speak from experience. I was also involved in promoting several of the dinners in the early days at the Rock. OK3 is quite correct to point out the difficulties in staging such events. At the Craig Brittain Dinner in the last few days before it I was on the phone calling every favour in simply to get people to attend. There were many call offs in the last few days too which meant that we had to pay the Raddison for an unsold table. One of the speakers (Chic Charnley) called off six hours before the event. At the Gordon Lennon Dinner four of his team mates at Dumbarton didn't pay for their tickets despite repeated requests and one booked table of guests from another club, failed to turn up. Over both dinners there were unpaid auction items amounting to 100s of pounds. For a Hall of Fame Dinner, you would need about a third of our home support to attend at £50 a head to make it viable. In the current economic climate I can't see it. At the Gordon Lennon dinner, a caterer provided the food and waiting staff at cost. Even then it cost £2700. Partick Thistle gave us the function suite foc. The catering for Craig's dinner at the Raddison was about £5k......eight years ago. Even if you got the function suite at the club for nothing, catering at cost for a three course meal including waiting staff for 200 people would be around the £4k mark at £20 per head. The trust ran a great comedy night for a couple of years. They had to cancel the last one with tickets at around £20 including buffet for lack of interest.

I think the problem with doing anything like (the dinner) is attracting enough interest to cover costs. As I recall I think the cost for the Hall of Fame Dinner was about £40-£50 per head. If you take it that at least three tables worth were ex players, then they wouldn't be paying so the paying guest revenue is down by well over £1000 as well as having to pay out for their hospitality. It was much easier in the early noughties to charge that kind of money for tickets to dinners. Even then sometimes the place was hard to fill.

There were so many dinners in the early days at the Rock where ex Sons attended that I honestly can't remember which players were at which. I remember Kenny Wilson, Roy McCormack, Peter Coleman, John Bourke and Hughie Gallagher at the Hall of Fame thing but there were certainly many more than them there. I've certainly been at the same table as Jim Meechan, Paul Martin, Tom Carson, Craig Brittain, Stevie Gow and Jim Marsland at various things down there. I don't think there actually is a 'Hall of Fame' as such, I think they just gave that dinner the name as the idea was to unite as many former Sons players as possible..

We had a Hall of Fame Dinner in the early days at the Rock. I had the pleasure of introducing some of the players to the audience.

I always relish a trip to the Shyster Exceller Stadium. I was able to celebrate winning the play offs there a few years ago whilst educating some of the younger fans about economics. "This is one of the folly stadiums built by middle ranking clubs in Scotland in which, silly as it may seem, these clubs thought that they needed 10,000 seats. This one bankrupted Airdrieonians. A new club, Airdrie United bought Clydebank's place in the league. The stadium is less than a tenth full most weeks and the people who do turn up are a bit like Trident. Weapons whom the majority of people in Scotland would rather not have on our soil"

I thought the guy in the beret looked a bit like a cross between Wolfie of the Tooting Peoples Front and Frank Spencer.

Anyone who has ever tried to organise anything will have sympathy with Sonstrust. I think that it's only really the big bus that works as far as giving the punters a decent price for the journey. The logistics of getting people committed to go, getting them to turn up and importantly getting them to pay is not really achievable by someone having an idea of running a smaller bus four days before the game. It sounds simple - it isn't. Tommy has done a great job with the bus. If a way could be found to run a smaller bus viably then he'd have done it.

I think Garry enhanced his reputation and bought considerable kudos with the support by turning down the move to St Mirren. I'd agree he'll be disappointed with some recent performances but as others have said, you can never fault his effort.

To be fair he'll probably have realised when he saw it again. Now that I've finally watched it again I'd agree that Brown was caught in two minds and Docherty was sleeping. The highlights certainly didn't seem as bad as the game was.

Spalding's departure from St Mirren was confirmed on Radio Scotland news tonight. As for our own situation, like everyone I was delighted with the appointment of Steve Aitken as well as our great start in the league. I think we should stick with him but that really all depends on results and the fixtures between now and Christmas could be quite unforgiving.

I'll go first then. It might not be the daftest idea to stick with Steve Aitken. We're going to need an experienced league one manager next season.