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This was an afternoon of dreary weather and drearier football at Newtown Park - surely the worst game Bo'ness have been involved in this season, though the consolation for the home team was that they picked up three points despite playing poorly. Given that they have regularly played better without reward, this was something to be thankful for.
The opening minutes promised at least an eventful game, if not a high quality one. Inside the first ten minutes, David Wood saw a good low drive tipped just wide of the post; then at the other end, Neil Binnie made a good near post block to keep out an effort from six yards.
This, however, was a false dawn. The game continued in a scrappy vein, but with precious little notable action. Bo'ness were applying the greater pressure, though, and received the reward for their slightly less pathetic efforts with 31 minutes played. Gordon Herd picked the ball up midway inside the Pumpherston half, beat three men in a run into the box, and was taken down inside the penalty area. Bo'ness have struggled from the penalty spot this season but one man, at least, seems fairly reliable - and David Muirhead was on hand to step up and slam the ball home.
Things picked up a little in the closing minutes of the half. Muirhead found himself in a good position in the visitors' box, but miskicked. Then Pumpherston's No.9 got himself on the end of a good cross, but headed just over. The BUs' response was positive - within minutes, Dale Ryan flashed a shot just wide from a tricky angle.
But the half as a whole had been a pretty dire affair, with almost nothing in the way of good football and incidents of interest few and far between. The second half had to be better.
Well, no, it didn't; and it wasn't. Perhaps an even more depressing 45 minutes for the paying spectator, both sides continued to play poorly. And despite the closeness of the score, there was an inevitability about the home triumph. Pumpherston barely made it into the Bo'ness box all half, and their only hopes of a goal were either a flash of genius (incredibly unlikely) or a defensive blunder (far more probable - or at least it would have been had the Bo'ness defence been under any pressure).
Tellingly, the highlight of the first 37 minutes of the half was a David King effort from the edge of the box which had been deflected just wide of the Pumpherston goal. Then, at last, something to temporarily relieve the tedium. Sloppy defending allowed Bo'ness's Greig Hodge - in for Scott Love, and one of the better performers on the day - time and space on the Pumperston right. His cross picked out the totally unmarked Muirhead and, with the goalkeeper nowhere, he was left with the simple task of nodding the ball into an empty net from six yards for his second of the game.
That ended any lingering doubt over the outcome - and, unsurprisingly, it was the last real action of the game. A match to forget.
Bo'ness United: Binnie; Smith, King, Todd, Yates [capt], Muirhead, Hodge, Mooney, Ryan (Jeffrey), Herd, Wood.