Dumbarton FC's Stevie Murray's blues over spot kick miss

Apr 24 2009 by Andy Galloway, Lennox Herald (main ed)

STEVIE Murray was given the birthday blues by his penalty miss in Dumbarton’s goalless draw with Cowdenbeath on Saturday.

The midfielder saw his spot kick saved after 13 minutes of Sons’ crunch clash with the league leaders on the day he turned 26.

And he was so disappointed about the lost chance that he was rather subdued during a birthday meal with partner Jen on Saturday night.

But he’s hoping to make up for it over the next two weeks, with Sons facing a home double header against Forfar and Elgin, possibly to clinch the third division title.

He said: “My partner was a bit disappointed for me and it was quite a quiet night out. I think I was depressing her with my mood after missing the penalty!

“Obviously we were very disappointed as we felt we deserved to win the game. The penalty was a blow but the manager, my teammates and the fans were very good to me afterwards.

“The manager said that I had won the penalty and wanted to take it so nobody would have a go at me for that.

“Here’s hoping Montrose can do us a favour on Saturday by beating Cowdenbeath at home. They beat us up there and we hope they can do the same to Cowden.

“But we have to do our bit first by beating Forfar and we know how difficult that will be. Our 2-0 scoreline up there recently suggests it was easy but it wasn’t.”

Like everybody else at the club, Stevie was impressed by the Sons support, which made up at least half of the 1181 crowd in Fife.

He said: “It was brilliant having a support like that. There were a few of us saying before the game that we would need to give the fans something to go home with.”

And he admitted he sacrificed power for accuracy on Saturday due to the state of the Central Park pitch.

He added: “My teammates know I usually blast penalties straight down the middle, but because of the way the pitch was I thought I’d maybe shoot over the bar if I did that.

“I don’t know if people would have taken a draw before the game, but we were going out to win and that showed in the line-up.

“We haven’t conceded in five games now and we’ve been scoring goals. Because of Derek Carcary’s injury we could have gone with one upfront, but we went with two looking to win.

“But we can still do it, and it would be brilliant to win the title at home, rather than have to do it on the last day at Annan.”