THREE wins and a draw in their first four games, plus the notable signing of Chris King, had resulted in an air of positivity around New Countess Park ahead of their South Division fixture at home to Lochgelly Albert on Saturday.
In the two seasons since Fife clubs integrated with their Lothians counterparts to form the South Division, Lochgelly have shown themselves to be a stuffy mid-table team – United boss Geoff Jones knew well his team would have to work for any reward.
As it was, though, on an awful afternoon weather-wise on the coast, his team contrived to put in as disappointing a performance as had been seen in a while.
The visitors were forced to change their goalkeeper when the original selection was injured during the warm-up, but it might have made little difference had he stuck it out given Dunbar’s first-half capitulation.
Busy Lochgelly striker Perrie put them in front with 15 minutes played, but they could scarcely have imagined that within 20 minutes their lead would be trebled – Perrie grabbed a second before Bathgate piled on the misery for the Dunbar fans.
If they thought it couldn’t get any worse, they were mistaken, with the Fife men making it 4-0 through Robertson before the end of the first half.
The damage was already done and an improvement in Dunbar’s showing had little impact on the eventual outcome. Sam Young missed a penalty before scoring what transpired to be a solitary consolation goal.
On a day best forgotten, the Seasiders ended up with only 10 men after Ross Colquhoun was red-carded for a professional foul.
Dunbar’s management team will have reminded their players that the best way to atone for last week’s sub-par performance is to put it behind them and bounce back as quickly as possible; they won’t find things easy on Saturday though at Rosyth, with the home team having started the season most disappointingly after pushing hard for promotion last time out.