As Dundee travel to Edinburgh to take on Hibernian in the Ladbrokes Premiership, we take a look at a player who has played for both clubs, defender George Stewart who won the League Cup with The Dee.
George Stewart’s 12 year career at Dens Park saw him play in a European semi-final, two national cup finals and pick up a winners medal as part of the Dundee side who won the League Cup in 1973.
Born in Edinburgh in 1948, Stewart joined the Dark Blues from Tynecastle Boys Club in 1964 and made his first team debut three years later in a 0-0 home draw with Partick Thistle on February 25th 1967. The big defender came into the side to replace the out of form Jim Easton and being favourably compared to Ian Ure, Stewart played in eight of the nine remaining league matches as Dundee clinched a spot in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup.
Stewart kept his place at the start of the 1967/68 season and when the Fairs Cup campaign began in the Olympic Stadium against DWS Amsterdam, he made the first of 12 appearances in Europe for The Dee. Seven of those appearances came in the 1967/68 season as the Dark Blues reached the semi-final stage where they lost out to Leeds United. George played in both legs against Don Revie’s side and the only match he missed en route was the 4-1 away win over Royal Leige in the second round.
Four years later the Fairs Cup was renamed the UEFA Cup and Dundee were back in the competition and in the second round they were drawn against old foes Cologne. Having missed both legs of the first round 5-2 aggregate victory over AB Copenhagen, Stewart was back in the starting line up in the Müngersdorfer Stadion where Dundee lost the first leg in controversial circumstances.
Just after the break Cologne opened the scoring when Rupp’s short corner was dummied by Flohe, only for Rupp himself to set up Sheermann to score. Two consecutive touches from a corner kick were not in the rule book but the dummy had confused the referee as well as the Dundee defence and the goal stood.
Despite an equaliser from Kinninmonth, Lohr got Cologne’s winner seven minutes from time but in the second leg Dundee got revenge, storming back from 4-2 down on aggregate to win a famous tie 5-4.
The third round again paired Dundee with an opponent from the 1962/63 European Cup campaign in AC Milan and Stewart played in both legs where a superb 2-0 win at Dens wasn’t enough to overturn the 3-0 defeat in the San Siro in the first leg.
Stewart played in four different European campaigns and scored one of his ten Dundee goals in the UEFA Cup at home to Twente Enschede in September 1973.
Domestically Stewart had a good record in cup competitions with The Dee and in 1967 earned a runners-up medal when the Dark Blues lost 5-3 to Celtic in the League Cup Final in one of the best matches ever seen at Hampden.
Six years later the sides met again in the final of the same tournament and by then Dundee had played Celtic a further ten times in cup competitions, losing seven, drawing two and winning just one where they still went out on aggregate in the 1972 League Cup quarter-final. Stewart played in all but one of those matches, which included Scottish Cup semi-final defeats in 1970 and 1973 and with that record in mind, Celtic were overwhelming favourites to win the League Cup again in December 1973.
Against all expectation however, Dundee gained revenge for all those recent losses when a superb Gordon Wallace goal with 15 minutes left was enough to take the trophy back to the city of ‘Jute, Jam and Journalism.’
In The Courier match report the following Monday Stewart was given a top score, five star rating and it stated that Gemmell, Stewart, Duncan, Ford and Wallace were Dundee’s top men.
In was the undoubted highlight of George’s career at Dens but he expresses a slight disappointment that having played in so cup semi-finals, the League Cup victory was his only winners medal with Dundee.
Four months after that triumph, Stewart played again in another semi-final defeat to Celtic in a 1-0 Scottish Cup loss at Hampden and 12 months later endured a fourth semi-final defeat to The Bhoys with an with identical score line from the year before.
Season 1975/76 was to be Stewart’s last in a Dundee shirt as relegation from the inaugural Premier Division meant that costs had to be cut and George was transferred to Hibernian for £37,000.
Stewart was moving to his native Edinburgh having often commuted by train to Dundee during his time at Dens but the enigmatic 28 year old was a big loss to the Dundee defence.
Stewart played in over 100 league matches for Hibs, and played in the twice-replayed 1979 Scottish Cup Final and had helped Hibs reach that final by scoring one of the goals Hearts in the quarter-final, cementing his place in Easter Road folklore.
Powerful in the air with a good touch on the ground, Stewart had been a popular character in both the dressing room and on the terracing and was last year nominated for the Dundee FC Hall of Fame.
Honours at Dundee:
Scottish League Cup winners: 1973/74
Scottish League Cup runners-up: 1967/68
Inter-Cities Fairs Cup semi-final: 1967/68
Appearances, Goals:
League: 199 + 1 sub, 6 goals
Scottish Cup: 19, 1 goal
League Cup: 53, 2 goals
Europe: 12, 1 goal
Other: 8
Totals: 292, 10 goals