In season 1952/53 Dundee beat Kilmarnock in the Scottish League Cup Final and in the process became the first club to successfully defend the trophy. After defeating Rangers 3-2 in the 1951 final, Dundee completed the ‘Road to Hampden’ again twelve months later and would lift the League Cup for a second time with a 2-0 victory over Kilmarnock on October 25th.
Dundee reached the final after a superb 2-1 semi-final victory over reigning League champions Hibernian at Tynecastle and were now overwhelming favourites to retain the League Cup against the Ayrshire part-timers who were currently rooted to the bottom of the ‘B’ Division.
The Dark Blue team was announced on the Friday and were to line up (with positions on brackets): Bobby Henderson (gk), Gerry Follon (rb), Gordon Frew (lb), Ken Ziesing (rh), Alfie Boyd (ch) capt., Doug Cowie (lh), Jimmy Toner (rw), Albert Henderson (ir), Bobby Flavell (cf), Billy Steel (il), George Christie (rw).
George Anderson wasn’t fit enough to travel from his home in Aberdeen and he sent a telegram to Dens with a message to the players which was read to be out by trainer Reggie Smith once they had boarded the train on Friday afternoon. It said:
“To again reach the final you have overcome all hurdles. You have done this by producing football of real brilliance. You now face the last hurdle. I know that no matter how difficult, you will clear it and thereby create a record. Go to it boys! I’ll be listening.”
By the time of the 2.30pm kick off there were 51,830 inside Hampden with blue the predominant colour on the terracing. There was a uniformity amongst the crowd with the majority wearing bunnets and demob suits; a three piece suit and waistcoat that servicemen were given when they were demobilised from the armed forces at the end of the Second World War.
Coming out of the South Stand tunnel, Dundee were wearing their traditional dark blue shirts and white shorts while Kilmarnock wore their home colours of blue and white vertical stripes as the Scottish League had deemed that their kits did not clash.
Continual overnight rain had made the pitch heavy and the notorious Hampden wind was swirling strongly and when Kilmarnock captain Jimmy Middlemass won the toss, he chose to attack the west goal with the wind in their favour. Straight away it was evident that the Ayrshire part-timers were not merely there to make up the numbers and took the game to Dundee and bombarded the Dark Blues’ goal with a wave of attacks. It was a palpitating first half where Killie had Dundee at full stretch and only an inspired display of goalkeeping from Bobby Henderson kept the Killie attack at bay.
At the interval Dundee were lucky to still be on level terms but with wind advantage in the second half, they were hopeful of turning the tide.
The Dens defence had held up well but the attack had created little with youngster Bert Henderson badly affected by nerves and with Billy Steel closely marked by Johnny Russell, he was a shadow of his former self. The ‘root’ of the problem became clear a few days after the final however when Steel had no fewer than eleven teeth extracted!
George Christie had also picked up a nasty shoulder injury early on when he was brought down heavily and when he went into the dressing room at half time, he was suffering severe pain. The Dens Park doctor had to give him two pain killing injections and strap up the shoulder and at full time diagnosed the trouble as a pulled muscle in the shoulder.
Despite the pain, Christie nearly opened the scoring thirteen minutes after the break with a raking thirty yarder which was fisted onto the bar but it was a rare Dundee attack. The second half started where the first half ended with a string of Kilmarnock attacks and they very nearly took the lead on the hour when Gordon Frew had to make a last minute tackle when Henaughan was poised for a shot.
The turning point came however with just ten minutes left when Jimmy Toner went to his skipper Alfie Boyd and asked him if he could switch inside and when Boyd agreed he swapped places with Bert Henderson.
Two minutes later Toner got the ball from a midfield mix-up, feinted to make out to Henderson on the touchline and with the Killie defence on the wrong foot, put a peach of a pass through to Bobby Flavell. It was the first effective Dundee pass of the game and the first chance that Flavell had and he showed his appreciation by firing low past Niven to give Dundee a scarcely deserved lead.
It was Dundee 1 Kilmarnock 0 with just eight minutes left and on eighty-seven minutes, the Dark Blues doubled their lead and made certain that the cup was coming to Dens for the second year in a row. Bobby Henderson’s long punt reached the Killie penalty box and as centre-half Thyne hesitated, Bobby Flavell rushed in. The wee centre let the ball bounce twice before racing in to thump the ball into the corner of the net in exactly the same spot as five minutes before.
Dundee had become the first side in the competition’s history to retain the trophy and created the record that George Anderson had craved. The manager had followed the match at home with regular fifteen minute phone calls from Hampden in the first half and in the second half listened to the live commentary on the wireless.
According to The Sporting Post’s summary, “The League Cup goes back to Dundee but they will never have to fight harder for a trophy. They have the opportunism of Bobby Flavell to thanks. Those two late goals were masterpieces of quick thinking.”
Alfie Boyd received the trophy from the Scottish League president on Dundee’s behalf and was lifted shoulder on the pitch by his team mates. There were joyous scenes amongst the players and fans but the celebrations on the Hampden pitch were curtailed slightly after the heavens opened at the final whistle.
After drinking copious amounts of champagne from the cup in the dressing room, the Dundee party headed to Buchanan Street station to be greeted by a mass of Dark Blue and a huge cheer and Alfie Boyd showed the trophy off to the Dundee fans out of the window of the train as he had done the previous year. The Sporting Post announced that Dundee would be returning to Dundee West at 8.30pm and a jubilant crowd of 25,000 were booking their vantage points two hours before their arrival.
The train arrived five minutes late and the Dundee party were hustled out to their bus on Yeaman Shore via a side entrance. It wasn’t an open topped bus that greeted the players so they climbed up onto the roof to take the acclaim of their adoring public. George Christie was still in great pain and struggled to hoist himself onto the roof but once they were all on, Alfie Boyd held the cup aloft to a tumultuous cheer. The bus moved off at a snail’s pace and as it wound its way through Whitehall Cresent and Whitehall Street into High Street, the crowds were lined up ten deep with trams and motor cars brought to a standstill.
A large crowd had assembled in the City Square, where the bus had done a circuit twelve months before but they were disappointed when the bus went up Reform Street and straight down to West Ferry by Victoria Road. They were heading to chairman James Gellaty’s house in Albany Road for a club celebration and the crowd in the city centre dispersed quickly when they heard of the coach’s destination.
From the chairman’s house the party went on to the Royal British Hotel at 10pm for a victory dinner and a crowd of around 1500 converged to acclaim their heroes. It was chaos around the entrance and the players struggled to get in and when the crowd refused to budge, Bobby Flavell made a personal appeal from one of the windows. The crowd eventually moved but not before a sing song as their celebrations went on long into the night.
For a club like Dundee to become the first club to win the League Cup back to back was a phenomenal achievement and the players had earned themselves legendary status in the annals of Dark Blue history.
Article by Kenny Ross
