Diving in Boldon and in Edinburgh ... a tenuous but interesting link between Dunston UTS and Scotland

Only five days to go until the big game. On Saturday Dunston UTS will play Penrith at home in the FA Cup Preliminary Round and I will be there as this is my next stop on the 'Road to Wembley from Scotland.

The two teams have met once before in the FA Cup. They were drawn to play each other in 1991 and the first match ended 2-2. The replay must have been some game as it finished 6-6. In that era there were no penalty kick shoot-outs so the tie went to a second replay and Dunston (then known as Dunston Federation Brewery) won 2-1. A total of 19 goals scored in the tie! I am hoping to see some of that goal action on Saturday.

At the weekend both teams were in Northern League action in the lead up to the big game and both teams suffered disappointments. Penrith lost 0-2 at home against Bishop Auckland.

The end of the match on Saturday and Penrith are beaten by Bishop Auckland

Dunston drew 2-2 away to Jarrow Roofing in Boldon and reading the match report on the Dunston UTS web site it appears as if it was a game they should have won. Leading 2-1 with time running out it appears that they were cheated out of a useful away win by a dive from the Jarrow player. The web site match reporter is understandably very careful with the words he uses describing the incident as follows: 'As the game entered the 90th minute, Gilhespy tangled with Chow on the edge of the box, Chow dived to the ground and the referee awarded a free kick to Jarrow.' The report concludes by saying that 'Dunston again gave away a late goal as Chow bought a free kick on the edge of the box'. I can fully understand why the report is phrased this way but reading between the lines I think that Dunston are annoyed at the gamesmanship of the Jarrow player ... now time for a rant!

Up here in chilly Jocko-Land diving has also been the hot topic of the week (hence I am making this tenuous but interesting link between Dunston UTS and Scotland). Just over a week ago I was at Tynecastle to see my beloved Hearts take on Celtic.  In the 36th minute Hearts were awarded a penalty when Jamie Walker was 'felled' in the box. I was sitting behind the goal at the other end of the pitch and it looked for all the world like a stick-on penalty. Jamie certainly made it look convincing. TV pictures showed that he was not fouled and that Walker dived. He explained: 'I felt contact and I went down'. Poor show Jamie on two counts: (i) he could not have felt contact as there was no contact and (ii) no player should want to 'go down' with the ball at his feet - tying to 'win' a penalty in this manner is a horrible blemish on the modern version of the beautiful game.

.. and the Judges marks are 5.8, 5.9, 5.8, 5.7 and 6.0

Worse was to follow. The SFA, quite rightly,  retrospectively handed Walker a 2 match ban for simulation last Monday. My beloved Hearts unfortunately chose to appeal knowing that the appeal would not be heard until Thursday. Hearts had an important league cup tie against St Johnstone on Wednesday and Walker was hence eligible to play. Ironically he scored a penalty for my beloved Hearts in that match. This whole incident looks bad and my beloved Hearts have not come out of this with any credit. On Thursday the appeal was dismissed and the two game ban now applies. The point of this rant is that football clubs should be careful what messages they are sending out - as actions such as the appeal are absorbed by supporters who believe that their football club will always act in an honourable manner. I was at Pittodrie on Saturday to watch Hearts play Aberdeen and the consensus among most of the Hearts support was that somehow the club had been shafted by the SFA. They chanted 'fuck the SFA, fuck the SFA, fuck the SFA, fuck the SFA, fuck the SFA, fuck the SFA, fuck the SFA' continuously for 10 minutes in the first half. I am a dedicated and devoted Hearts fan but I found this embarrassing. My beloved Hearts have done great work changing the image of the club over the last few years emphasising the organisation as a family friendly club proud of their history and their community focus. Hopefully the ill judged stance of defending the indefensible is now behind us and is not repeated and it would be good if Jamie Walker, who is a very talented young footballer, changes his ways and tries to stay on his feet in future. There is no place for diving in football - be it in the Northern League in Boldon or the SPFL at Tynecastle. Rant over.

Hopefully the only diving I will see on Saturday is diving headers flashing goalwards. I am feeling a real sense of anticipation regarding the game between Dunston UTS and Penrith on Saturday. Even more so now as I will be joined at the match by my son Brian who will be travelling with me  from Midlothian to the game. Brian is now 31 but I just love spending time with him. I spoke with a very old friend Alan McCusker Thompson last week and always a man for good advice and memorable soundbytes Alan said "take your time and enjoy your time. It is beyond riches". Nice one Al

The UTS Stadium on Saturday here I come ... cannae wait.