Fresh off the back of a game against the young whippersnappers of Glasgow Uni, Dumfries men’s 1s took their weary bodies to KGV on Sunday for a league doubleheader; this time they welcomed Hillhead 5B. The game started well for the hosts as a searching ball from Moore found Bean who ran 40 metres up the pitch before slotting it beyond the onrushing keeper. 1-0. The West Enders quickly found an equaliser 1-1. Undeterred the men in red continued to work the ball well and were rewarded with a short corner; Moore injected to Aitken and despite being wildly hungover he slotted the ball into goal to restore Dumfries’ lead. 2-1. Hillhead once again continued to press but they were unable to get past a defence marshalled well by Davidson and Marshall and on the rare occasion that cracks appeared Steele was on form and pulled off a string of important saves. The hosts further extended their lead on roughly the 25th-minute mark via another short corner. This time after the initial shot from the top of the D was well saved by the Hillhead keeper, the ball fell to Aitken who sent the rebound home to collect his second of the day. 3-1. Things continued to work well for the men in red and they soon built on their lead, this time a ball was sent forward and was collected by a sobering-up Aitken who drove the D his goal-bound shot beat the keeper; however, Macfarlane was on hand at the back post to “make sure it crossed the line” and thus deny Aitken a first half trick. The debate on if the ball would’ve gone in rages to this day! 4-1. Dumfries put the finishing touches on an excellent first half when Moustachioed maestro Marshall got a bit lost and ended up in the opposition's 23 (he doesn’t know how he got there, and we have no clue either!) the centre back received a ball and squared it to Johnston and the bearded wizard’s shot found the bottom corner. 5-1. Things were going well, too well one might say… Just before the half, Moore forgot what sport he was playing and put in a challenge fit for an Aussie rules football in the Dumfries D and duly gave away a penalty flick. The Hillhead striker stepped up and slotted the chance home 5-2. HT 5-2.
At halftime, the message was very much, more of the same and let’s get a win.
However, with a 3-goal cushion, the hosts struggled to get going in the second half whereas Hillhead grew into the game! Within the first 5 minutes of the second half, the visitors got on the scoresheet after a well-worked team goal. 5-3. Hillhead quickly backed this up with another soon after to bring the scores even closer. 5-4. The atmosphere in the stadium changed with murmurs of a “collapse” being heard in the capacity crowd. As well as this, the language of the team also changed with ‘keeper Steele’s racking up enough warnings for swearing to finance a new pitch (swear jar to maybe started?). However, the hosts managed to clinch to victory and welcomed the final whistle on the 70th minute mark. FT 5-4. This result means that 3 games into the league season Dumfries have completed their ultimate goal of balance- 1 win; 1 draw and 1 loss. Furthermore, it appears that this was the first league win for the 1st team in over 500 days… (Yeah, we had to double-check that too! It’s been a tough ride recently) Many thanks to Iain and Gladys who umpired.

MotM- James Aitken despite his best efforts of self-sabotage the night before
DotD- Ed Moore for his tackling technique which is a bit more than “robust”

The 1st team have a week off before a big local derby against Ayr at Fortress KGV on the 26th.