Match Report - By John Hoey

Brechin City made it two home victories on the trot after a 3-1 win against Dumbarton at Glebe Park.

City were made to fight all the way by a plucky Dumbarton side whose performance belied their basement position in the Second Division table.

City boss Jim Duffy made three changes from the side that lost to Hibs in the CIS Cup 2nd round on Wednesday night. Jon Seeley, Ian Nimmo and Charlie King dropped to the bench, and were replaced by Barry Smith, Kevin Byers and Ian Harty.

City put pressure on the Dumbarton defence from the outset and opened the scoring in the 21st minute with a debut goal from Mark Docherty.

Willie Dyer delivered a good pass from the left into the path of Docherty who hit the ball first-time. The ball took a deflection off Son’s full-back Chris Smith and went straight into the net with visitor’s keeper Jan Vosacek wrong-footed.

Dumbarton didn’t take this set-back lying down however, and they fought hard to get back into the game getting their reward with a superb equaliser just five minutes later.

Chris Craig delivered an inch-perfect corner from the right straight to centre-back Michael Dunlop who bulleted a header straight into the top corner of the net, giving City keeper Craig Nelson no chance.

It was now City’s turn to fight back, and they regained the lead just ten minutes later with a good goal from Rory McAllister.

The striker collected a pass from Ian Harty in the box and strode past a couple of defenders before unleashing a tremendous right-foot drive which sailed into the bottom corner of the net.

Dumbarton tried hard to claw back an equaliser after the break, and City had a narrow let-off in the 62nd minute when Smith cleared a Denis McGlaughlin effort off the line and minutes later substitute Scott Chaplain scorned a wonderful opportunity when he headed wide with the goal at his mercy.

It was City’s turn to be unlucky four minutes later when substitute Ian Nimmo scooped the ball over the bar under pressure from Ben Gordon.

In the 78th minute, a good run and shot from Gary Fusco almost extended City’s lead but keeper Vosacek tipped the ball over the bar.

There was goalmouth action at the other end a minute later when Docherty cleared a Gordon header off the line.

City needed another goal to make the points safe and it came deep into extra-time courtesy of the penalty-spot.

Mark Docherty weaved his way into the Dumbarton box and was ready to shoot, but was upended by Son’s full-back Andy Geggan.

Referee Frank McDermott pointed immediately to the penalty-spot and Charlie King stepped up to blast a perfect spot-kick beyond Vosacek to wrap up three vital points for City.

City boss Jim Duffy, speaking after the match said,

“ I was happy with patches of our performance and obviously happy with the result.

We’ve scored another three goals at home which brings our tally to ten goals in three games at Glebe Park, so you can’t have any complaints with that.

“ You have to give Dumbarton a lot of credit because in the second-half they came out with a 4-2-1-3 formation which was a very attack-minded formation. It gave us a little bit of a problem because although we created a number of chances we didn’t capitalise on them and there was always a chance that they would get something from a mistake and there were one or two moments of indecision.

However, I was delighted with the attitude shown by the players.

The boys had to work so hard on Wednesday and cover a lot of ground against Hibernian and one or two of them were definitely feeling it and that’s the reason why I left one or two of them out today like Charlie King and Jon Seeley.

However, Barry Smith came back into the side and I thought that he was excellent. I also thought that Mark Docherty was excellent and his work-rate was very good.

It’s really difficult for the boys to recover from a midweek game as they’ve got to go to their work the following day and be ready to play again on Saturday. They don’t have the luxury of ice-baths and massages.

I was a wee bit concerned about the game today but we had a bit of good fortune with Mark’s deflected goal and then Rory scored a good goal before Charlie’s penalty at the end.

We weren’t at our best but I thought that it was a very open and entertaining game.

This is a tough division where victories are hard to come by but I couldn’t fault the boys’ commitment and that’s now two home games and two wins and I have to be pleased with that.”

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