This afternoon Dundee entertain Ross County at Dens and so we take a look at a player who played for both clubs, Steven Milne who enjoyed two spells at Dens inbetween his one in Dingwall.

Steven Milne’s goals ultimately helped shoot Dundee back to the SPL when ‘second was actually somewhere’ in 2012. He finished as the Dark Blues’ top goalscorer for season 2011/12 with sixteen goals as Dundee finished as First Division runners-up, which ultimately allowed Dundee promotion back to the SPL thanks to Rangers’ demise.

Steven Milne was born on May 5th 1980 and nicknamed ‘Savo’ after the Yugoslav striker Savo Milosevic and he came through the Dens Park youth ranks to make his first team debut aged seventeen. He was given his debut by manager John McCormack when he started in a 2-0 win over St Mirren at Love Street on December 20th 1997 and featured again the following week coming off the bench for Brian Irvine at home to Falkirk in the year which Dundee won the First Division title.

Back in the top tier and under new management after Jocky Scott had replaced ‘Cowboy’ McCormack in February, Milne failed to make an appearance in the inaugural SPL in which Dundee finished fifth and so for the following season he was put out on loan to Forfar for the 1999/2000 season. At Station Park, Savo was a huge hit, scoring nineteen times and winning the Third Division Player of the Year as Forfar won promotion and he came back to Dens as a player full of confidence and ready to make his mark for The Dee.

It was all change at Dens however as Ivano Bonetti had taken over from Jocky Scott in the summer and as the Italian released a host of Scottish players to bring in his ‘Tayzurri’, Savo was not amongst them and was given squad number fifteen.

He made his first appearance of the season coming off the bench for Juan Sara in the opening home game against Dunfermline and made his first start away at Aberdeen on October 14th 2000 and his name would go down in Dark Blue history as the player who was replaced by Claudio Cannigia for the Argentinean’s debut just before half time.

His first goal for The Dee came a month later in a scintillating 5-0 home win over St Mirren and he could have made it six when he rasped the bar with a twenty-five yard shot in the last minute. His next goals for Dundee were a brace in another famous Bonetti victory when the Dark Blues came back from 2-0 down at Kilmarnock on December 16th to win 3-2 with Savo scoring the winner after some clever wing play from Atero.

However his fourth goal of the season trumped all of those when he scored a last minute header in a 2-0 win away to Rangers in March on an evening where a virtuoso performance form Caniggia all but sealed his summer move to Ibrox.

Milne’s pace and eye for goal had impressed Bonetti and in the Italian’s second season he began by coming off the bench in both legs of the UEFA Intertoto Cup tie with Sartid and made a total of thirty-five appearances, scoring seven times.

Jim Duffy replaced Bonetti in the closed season and Duff’s first year back was a memorable one with a fourteen match unbeaten run, a top six finish, a Scottish Cup Final appearance and a place booked in the UEFA Cup. Savo more than played his part with six goals in thirty-three appearances, including one on the day Dundee sealed their top six spot at Motherwell, started the semi-final against Inverness and in the Scottish Cup Final against Rangers on May 30th, he collected his runners-up medal after coming off the bench for Dave McKay with twelve minutes left.

Competition for a starting strikers berth was fierce in Savo’s first spell at Dens as he was competing first with the like of James Grady and Eddie Annand, then Willie Falconer, Tommy Coyne, Juan Sara, Fabian Caballero and laterally Nacho Novo and Steve Lovell and as a result many of his appearances at this time were from the bench. It should come as no surprise therefore that Milne holds the Club record for most substitute appearances for Dundee; sixty-six.

The following year however saw the highs of qualifying for Europe and playing in the Scottish Cup Final plummet to the lows of going into administration in November 2003 and Milne was one of the lucky ones who retained his job when the Administrator’s axe fell. Steven’s six years at the club meant that he was now one of the senior pros after fifteen players were sacked and he more than stepped up to the plate scoring eight goals from February onwards to ensure Dundee’s survival in the SPL and probably off the park as well.

At the end of that year, Milne’s contract ran out and he decided to try his luck down south at Plymouth but after just one year he was back north with St Johnstone where his six years in Perth saw him win the Challenge Cup in 2007/08 after a 3-2 win over Dunfermline at Dens and the First Division title the following year.

He was released from Saints in late 2010 and spent the rest of the season helping Ross County retain their First Division status and then in the summer of 2011 returned to his first club Dundee when he was brought ‘home’ by manager Barry Smith.

In his first year back, Savo finished as top scorer with sixteen goals, his best ever total in the top two tiers and while the electric pace of his youth may have gone, his clever play and sharpness in front of goal certainly hadn’t.

In December he scored his first hat-trick for The Dee in a 6-1 win at Hamilton and his second goal in the wind and the rain at New Douglas Park was voted as SFL Goal of the Month. After a long high ball out of defence from Gary Irvine, Savo controlled the ball with a fantastic touch before letting the ball bounce and then lobbing it over the head of Accies keeper David Hutton from about twenty-five yards out.

It was a memorable goal in an ultimately successful season as the aim of returning to the SPL was achieved – albeit by the back door. From being bottom of the league in November to finishing second was itself an achievement and the mantra of ‘second is nowhere’, of which we are all too familiar at Dens, this time didn’t apply when Rangers Football Club were unfortunately liquidated and their share in the SPL not transferred to the emergent Newco.

Savo made 18 appearances in the SPL, scoring 3 times and at the end of the season joined Arbroath when his contract ran out. Milne spent just a few months with Arbroath in League One before leaving them in November 2013 to start a new career with Police Scotland. His last match was a 0-3 defeat at home to Rangers on November 25th 2013 and he was appointed player-manager of Junior side Forfar Albion in July 2014.

Honours at Dundee:
Scottish Cup runner-up: 2003
Scottish League First Division winner: 1997/98
Scottish League First Division runner-up: 2010/11

Appearances, Goals:
League: 88 + 55 subs, 35 goals
Scottish Cup: 10 + 7 subs, 4 goals
League Cup: 6 + 2 sub, 4 goals
Europe: 2 subs
SFL Challenge Cup: 1, 1 goal

Totals: 171, 44 goals