When was dundee fc founded

To do so they would have to win their game in hand at Raith Rovers the following Tuesday, but after twenty-six minutes they suffered a serious blow when goalkeeper Tony Bullock had to go off with a hamstring injury. Dundee had been unlucky throughout the season with goalkeeping injuries to Robert Douglas and Tony Bullock and veteran goalkeeping coach Bobby Geddes had already featured on the bench five times before Christmas.

At the age of forty-nine years and eight months, Geddes became the oldest player in Scottish football history and let no one down with a performance that rolled back the years. The farcical situation with the goalkeeper just about summed things up for Dundee as a fifteen-point lead over Inverness had been overturned to a nine-point deficit. Dundee gained some revenge over Raith on the Saturday with a win in their last home game but a defeat at Caley on the last day meant Inverness won the league by twelve points, having orchestrated a twenty-seven point swing.

Where it all had gone wrong was what every Dundee fan wanted to know but credit to Inverness who went on a twenty-one game unbeaten run just after their defeat to the Dark Blues in the ALBA Cup final. Dundee never really recovered from the defeats to Airdrie and Ross County in January and took only nine points from twenty-seven after Gordon Chisholm took charge.

After a season which had started with so much hope and promise, it became painful watching the SPL dream, which seemed so close at Christmas, slowly disappear. Dundee had clearly gambled on getting promotion by offering higher wages than previous years and paying the second highest transfer fees in Scotland but it had not paid off. Dundee achieved that victory despite going down to nine men but the next game saw the Dark Blues go from the courageous to the ridiculous when they crashed out in of the ALBA Cup to Second Division Stenhousemuir, after a dismal performance saw The Dee surrender the trophy with a defeat.

Results continued to be poor with a defeat away to Partick and a draw with Ross County at Dens before another embarrassing cup exit, this time in the League Cup at Brechin on penalties. Defeats in Fife to Dunfermline and Cowdenbeath in September started to put real pressure on Gordon Chisholm but rumours started to circulate that there were more pressing financial pressures off the pitch. It was the third occasion that the club was on the brink due to financial mismanagement and as Dundee arguably sunk to the lowest level in its year history, there was real worry that the club might not survive this time.

As expected, the first task of the Administrator was to reduce the wage costs and release a number of staff with immediate effect. Jackson was involved in the same process at Motherwell when they went into administration in , letting go nineteen players shortly after taking over at Fir Park and on this occasion the number was thirteen. Amidst all the chaos and conjecture, Dundee actually had a game to play twenty-four hours later at Stirling Albion and new boss Barry Smith had the job of lifting the thirteen senior players who were left on the books.

Astonishingly, after such a week of turmoil and despair, a match would have understandingly been the last thing on the mind of the players, but they turned in an excellent performance which trumped anything of recent weeks. In front of a noisy away support, Dundee dominated the first half before Leigh Griffiths gave The Dee the lead not long after the break. Under the circumstances it was a very good point and an emotional week ended with an emotional moment that fitted the day perfectly.

Before the match, the players had gone into a huddle for the second match in a row and then at the end, every member of the team, alongside Barry Smith and his coaches, made a point of heading towards the plus away support that stood to applaud their heroes.

The Dundee fans gave the players a tremendous ovation and the bond between the players and the fans was a theme that was to become more prevalent in the weeks and months to come.

Before the next match at home to Partick however the club received another blow when the Scottish League hit Dundee with a twenty-five point penalty on November 1st. It left Dundee on minus eleven points, bottom of the league and in a state of shock. The fight for survival was now in full swing. It was the first victory since going into administration and there were wild celebrations both on and off the park. The noise nearly lifted the roof off of the old Archibald Leitch stand and Dee-Fiant was now the belief and inspiration.

Victories in the next five games against Ross County home and away , Morton, Cowdenbeath and Stirling Albion put The Dee on a ten game unbeaten run and chipped away at the gap between Dundee and second bottom place which was now down to ten points.

Against Ross County on January 2nd a familiar face was in the line-up when Steven Robb returned to help out his old club as a trialist. As well as the 25 point deduction the Scottish League had imposed a transfer embargo on Dundee and in the coming months manager Barry Smith would use the 3-game trialist loophole to help boost his tiny squad.

The most celebrated example of this occurred a month later against league leaders Raith Rovers at Dens on February 12th when club legend Neil McCann came out of retirement and put his boots on again for three games.

Now working as a SKY Sports pundit, he came to the aid of his old club and old team mate Barry Smith and it was a fairytale return for the winger. McCann started on the bench and came on after 57 minutes with Dundee already down. His appearance saw the tide begin to turn however and with four minutes left captain Gary Harkins scored a fantastic free kick to deservedly level the scores.

A Craig Forsyth corner was cleared by a Raith defender but when it fell to Matt Lockwood outside the box, he lofted it back in where it was met by Forsyth who headed the ball down. It landed at the feet of McCann twelve yards out and as he spun and fell to the ground, he lifted the ball gently into the air and watched it float over the Rovers keeper and into the net. When they got there, they buried him in dark blue bodies in front of a frenzied Dundee support which had bounced to the front of the South Enclosure to celebrate with their heroes.

It was simply magnificent as Dens reverberated with joy. Dundee exploited another loophole where Junior players could be used as trialists and Robertson did himself proud with a magnificent performance in the middle of the park in another win. By then Dundee had survival in their sights and on Easter Saturday travelled up to Dingwall where victory would ensure not only that Dundee would avoid bottom spot but also ninth place which would have put Dundee into a relegation play-off.

In many ways it was a performance which summed up much of the post-administration season as they defended superbly when under pressure, played some neat passing football, ground out a result when most needed and saw a youngster come to the fore by grabbing the winning goal.

The winning goal came from Leighton McIntosh in sixty-five minutes when he took advantage of a poor touch from Michael McGovern to take the ball off the County keeper before rolling it into the empty net in front of the jubilant away fans. The final whistle brought scenes of joy as players, management and fans celebrated the amazing feat of what they had achieved in staying up after the 25 point deduction with two games to spare.

Survival had seemed a pipe dream in November but it would be an achievement long remembered. The following week there was a carnival atmosphere at Dens as almost fans came out to salute their heroes against Partick Thistle. An entertaining win meant that Dundee had lost just one game in 27 and the players enjoyed a lap of honour at the end.

Dundee would finish the league in sixth place, 24 points ahead of bottom, 9 points ahead of the play-offs and the players deserved the applause for everything they had done in adversity, giving their all and for playing a huge, huge part in saving the club. The fans-led new board was announced at the end of season player of the year dinner at the Hilton Hotel as was the news that Barry Smith had been appointed permanent manger.

It was a new beginning and a new chapter for club and no one seriously expected Dundee to be challenging for promotion as the club started to rebuild. A series of disappointing defeats to Livingston, Morton, Falkirk, Hamilton and Ross County contributed to being rooted to the bottom. The return of a former hero however changed the fortunes on the pitch when Gavin Rae rejoined the club seven years after leaving for Rangers to raise much needed cash during the first administration.

Steven Milne, another former Dee who had returned in the summer scored a hat-trick at New Douglas Park as the Dark Blues started to shoot up the league. By early February Dundee were up to third, six points behind leaders Ross County who had two games in hand but had lost Gavin Rae to his hometown team Aberdeen. The chance to close the gap on the Staggies however came when they visited Dens at the end of the month but a draw allowed County to keep their distance and as they won their games in hand, started to pull away at the top.

Dundee kept plugging away however and by the end of March were up to second in the league albeit 15 points behind the Highlanders.

A run of four home games in a row allowed Dundee to stay ahead of Falkirk in second spot and when they beat the Bairns at Dens in early April, it all but ensured that Dundee would finish as runners-up. By the end of the season the situation with Rangers was no clearer and the uncertainty became a Scottish football summer soap opera. Rangers had indeed liquidated but when the new season fixtures were released on June 20th, the S.

After a season of consolidation manager Barry Smith now looked to assemble a Dark Blue squad to attempt to win promotion but as he did so, events with Rangers took a dramatic turn.

On July 4th the eleven other S. The League Cup First Round draw was made in June giving Dundee an away trip to Peterhead but this match was scheduled to take place on the first day of the S. This match therefore had to be brought forward four days to the previous Wednesday meaning Dundee had to cancel a pre-season friendly with Bristol City.

Dundee however had been building for a tilt at the First Division title and had assembled a squad over the summer which reflected this. With no goals and no points after three games, it was obvious that Dundee needed to add to their squad but they were unable to do so as they had yet to receive any money from the SPL. With Rangers now playing in the Third Division this caused uncertainty with the television deals and the usual August payment was delayed until September after the transfer window had closed.

With Dundee having no overdraft since administration, they were therefore only able to bring in Hartlepool striker Colin Nish on loan until January. Yet again it was a brief flirtation in the top division and United dropped straight back down again at the end of For the next few years, Dundee United struggled both on and off the pitch. They came close to the top of the table in but for most of the s, they were found battling in the lower reaches of the league.

The country as a whole was in the grip of a recession and several Scottish football clubs went to the wall. Dundee United were almost one of them. In the latter stages of , the Club were on the verge of extinction but were saved at the eleventh hour by local businessmen William McIntosh and George Greig. Jimmy Brownlie then returned to take charge of the team again and for a brief time the future looked good. However, within two years, the Club experienced severe financial difficulties and George Greig stepped in yet again to save the Club.

Strict fiscal controls were instigated and he dispensed with the services of Brownlie to manage the club himself. Dundee United survived — but only just. Greig stepped down at the end of and a new Board of Directors took over for the new season. One important stipulation in the new set up was that the bottom two clubs at the end of would drop out. Unfortunately, Dundee Hibs were one of those sides and the Club again found itself in the football wilderness.

In the run up to , the Dundee Hibs Directors desperately held on to the hope of redemption but in so doing, almost missed the chance to play in any other league. Mere days away from extinction, the Club was handed a lifeline when they were offered a place in the Scottish Alliance League, which was in effect the reserve league for the First Division sides.

Hibs struggled through that campaign but all the while, the Directors were canvassing support for a return to the Scottish League. They worked tirelessly in the Dundee Hibs cause and it paid off when the Club was voted back into the Second Division for Dundee United Football Club. About United.