WHEN it comes to football and less important issues, the good folk of Dundee don’t like outsiders poking uneducated noses into their business.
Quite right, too. Unless you live in the City of Discovery, or at least if your roots began on the banks of the silvery Tay, how can you judge the feeling and passion about its two teams from the same street?
For example, just read this nonsense about amalgamation – which came close to happening in the late 1980s – and shake your head at the audacity of a non-Dundonian pretending to know what the people want.
“The time may have arrived for a one club city with a support base to compete with other big city clubs like Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts, all of whom have more than double the regular home core attendances at Dens and Tannadice.
“If anything did ever distinguish the two sets of city supporters from each other, it no longer does. Their respective histories forged over a century ago are now ancient script in a changing football story.”
The writer was talking about Dundee United and Dundee becoming one. This article appeared just a year ago in the Courier newspaper by the well-liked and respected Jim Spence, who is as Dundonian as they come, a former consultant at Tannadice and the broadcaster who has covered both clubs more than anyone else.
Spence made his point at a time when Dundee United were second in the Championship, behind Hibernian, and heading for a Premiership play-off, which they lost to Hamilton.
The fan had yet to be covered in manure. It’s currently dripping with the stuff.
But what the Tangerines would give to be in that far from lofty position now. And furthermore, it would be interesting to see what the reaction would be to the amalgamation debate if United continue on such a dramatic downward spiral for years to come.
This is a fine example of how not to run a football club.
In the 2014/15 season, a young and exciting Dundee United team, managed by Jackie McNamara, finished fifth in the league, a point off Europe, reached the League Cup Final, and while the sales of Stuart Armstrong and Gary Mackay-Steven to Celtic weeks before they played the Glasgow club in said final was controversial (more on that later), the club were in pretty rude health.
And now, three years later, this once great name languishes fourth in the second tier with no guarantee of making a play-off which even the die-hards don’t give them much of a hope of getting through.
The increasingly tired-looking Csaba Laszlo, appointed when Ray McKinnon was controversially sacked, is the fourth manager in two-and-a half years.
Chairman Steven Thompson has stepped down. The Gussie Park training ground was sold for a reported £1million to Mike Martin, the new chairman, to keep the lights on. They posted a loss of £1.55m last March and that took in the sale of three players.
Oh, and the famous Dundee United youth system which produced so many Scotland players? Well, a win this week over St Mirren took their under-20s off the bottom of the Development League.
Season tickets are now on sale. They are not flying off the shelves. More cuts will need to be made and that makes promotion next time all the more difficult.
What a mess. Ask any supporter what they make of it and the word “shambles” is quoted at you.
All football clubs make mistakes but this one has made more than most and no lessons have been learned. At least from the outside looking in.
Lots of money has been spent and wasted. The late and loved Eddie Thompson put £5m into the club but, with all due respect, not every penny was spent properly. But that was okay. To an extent. Thompson could write cheque after cheque. That’s far from the case now.
McNamara was thrown under a bus when it emerged that he was on a bonus for player sales when Armstrong and Mackay-Steven were moved on. He should have gone at the end of that season, he did not and was sacked in October 2015.
Mixu Paatelainen, a former player, was interviewed for the job and considered not up to the task. Thompson junior moved and missed Tommy Wright, and then went back for Paatelainen. Relegation came at the end of that season.
There is no money left. Crowds are down. Indeed, I know of supporters who have refused to go back after the “Celtic Two” were cashed in because finance was put before football.
Tannadice itself has seen better days and the fear among fans is that a further season outside of the Premiership, which does look inevitable, will mean the development squad being ditched to cut costs.
Whisper this, but the day may come when United have little choice but to join their neighbours.
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