Dundee FC are delighted to announce that their seventh Hall of Fame event will take place at the Invercarse Hotel on Friday 4th March 2016 and as has been traditional the fans will vote who they want inducted with a Legends Award from the list of nominees chosen by the Hall of Fame committee.

Over the course of this week we will reveal the six nominees online in alphabetical order and voting will open once they have all been advertised.

We are pleased to announce therefore that the first nominee for a Legends Award induction into the Hall of Fame is 1973 League Cup winning goalkeeper Thomson Allan

Dundee have had a fine tradition of good goalkeepers over the years and Thomson Allan certainly fits into that category, winning the Scottish League Cup in 1973 and going to the World Cup in West Germany with Scotland the following year. He was confidence personified and inspired his team mates with his immaculate handling and wonderful ability to cut out cross balls and is one of the best keepers to have worn the number one shirt for Dundee.

Thomson Sandlands Allan was born on October 5th 1946 in Longridge, West Lothian and after enjoying a youth career at Edina Hibs, was signed by Hibernian in 1963. At Easter Road, Allan would go on to become a League Cup runner-up in 1968/69 after defeating Dundee in the semis but with just seventy league appearances under his belt for the Edinburgh side, he was disappointed to be freed in the summer of 1972.

Fortunately for Allan, Dundee were on the lookout for a keeper as regular number one Ally Donaldson was in dispute with the club and manager John Prentice signed him on a free transfer as a more experienced option to youngster Mike Hewitt.

Being surplus to requirements in the Capital only made Thomson’s resolve to succeed all the greater and he went on to enjoy the best spell of his career with the Dark Blues.

He made his debut in the first game of the 1972/73 season in an 8-2 League Cup win away to East Stirlingshire and in all played 226 games for Dundee and kept a clean sheet on fifty-two occasions.

His finest moment in a Dundee shirt came on December 15th 1973 when Allan was part of the Dark Blue side which won the League Cup at Hampden with a 1-0 win over Celtic and it was sweet revenge for Thomson who had been on the losing side to Celtic five years previously.

In the twelve match League Cup run, Allan kept a clean sheet in seven of them including clean sheets in the quarters, semi and final. He also played in the two Scottish Cup semi-finals in consecutive years against Celtic and in two European campaigns but the League Cup win was the highlight of his eight years at Dens.

At this time Thomson was turning in brilliant performances on a weekly basis and he was rewarded with a place in the 1974 Scotland World Cup squad. He was one of three custodians in the twenty-two alongside David Harvey of Leeds and Kilmarnock’s Jim Stewart and he was given the number twelve squad number. Despite not playing in any of Scotland’s three matches in West Germany, Thomson was rewarded with two caps in the build up matches, playing the full ninety minutes in a 2-1 defeat to the hosts in Frankfurt and in Oslo against Norway where the Scots won 2-1.

In 1977 Allan’s team mate Tommy Gemmell took over the hot seat at Dens and when the team’s form took a dip, the former Lisbon Lion brought Ally Donaldson back from Falkirk to replace Allan.

At the end of the season Thomson walked out on Dundee and went on loan to Meadowbank Thistle before his former international boss Willie Ormond took Allan to Tynecastle in February 1979 for £10,000. At Hearts he made twenty-four appearances before moving to Falkirk and then East Stirlingshire before retiring in 1982.

These days Allan is a season ticket holder at Falkirk but he was welcomed back to Dundee in 2003 for the thirtieth anniversary dinner to celebrate Dundee’s League Cup win and again at the fortieth anniversary dinner in 2013 at the Invercarse Hotel on December 15th – the exact date of that historic win. The consistent, reliable and agile keeper is fondly remembered by Dundee supporters who were lucky enough to see him and he came out with the most number of votes in a fans’ favourite goalkeeper online poll on Dundee’s official site in 2009.

Honours at Dundee:
Scottish League Cup winner: 1973/74
Scotland full caps: 2

Appearances
League: 159
Scottish Cup: 16
League Cup: 41
Europe: 4
Other: 6
Total: 226