This weekend there were no Premiership games because it is an international date so this week we are bringing the first of a series of articles of players who have played for Scotland as a Dundee player: first up is Dundee’s most capped player Alex Hamilton.

Alex Hamilton had a party piece where he played keepie-up with a sixpence before flicking it up in the air and catching it in his pocket and he was the joker, the extrovert of the 1962 League Championship winning team. More than that however Hammy was a wonderful footballer, one of the best full backs of his generation and he wore the dark blue of Dundee and Scotland with distinction

Alexander William Hamilton was born in the West Lothian mining village of Armadale on April 5th 1936 and after being schooled in nearby Fauldhouse, he joined local juvenile side Westrigg Bluebell where he started his career playing at outside-right.

‘Hammy’, as he became known at Dundee joined the Dens Park side on March 6th 1957 despite missing a penalty when the Dark Blue manager Willie Thornton was watching. He had been working as an insurance agent at the behest of his mother but he was destined for great things in the dark blue of Dundee and Scotland.

Hammy didn’t have long to make his first team debut as just five months after putting pen to paper on Sandeman Street, he started in a 4-2 defeat at Hearts in the League Cup on August 31st. When his first five appearances all ended in defeat with the loss of 22 goals, Hamilton would hardly have envisaged that a League medal and a European Cup semi when only a few years away but by the end of the season he had made 21 appearances at right-back in the place of the injured Hugh Reid.

Hammy was a favourite with the fans and popular in the dressing room and his team mates all talk about him with fondness. He was instantly recognisable with his snappy, fair-haired crew cut and cheeky impish smile that was infectious to everyone around him.

At 5ft 7in he wasn’t the best defender in the air but Hammy’s skills lay in becoming one of the first over-lapping full backs in Scotland, no doubt helped by his education at outside-right with the Bluebells.

With an abundance of pace, he is remembered by Dundee and international team mate Ian Ure as “a player who oozed talent and flair and was as lively a character as you’ll ever meet”.

Bobby Wishart describes Hammy as “a livewire, a joker and a trickster” and says that Hamilton’s gang of Hugh Robertson, Ian Ure and Alan Gilzean were always up to something while Gillie himself calls him “a great character and an unbelievable guy.”

Off the park Hammy used to love winding his team mates up, particularly Bobby Cox about how many international caps he had compared to himself and on the pitch, he was often heard to shout to the Dundee fans in the South Enclosure, “here comes the Hammy magic” throughout his 359 appearances for The Dee.

The undoubted highlight for Hamilton at Dens came in the 1961/62 season when he was an ever present as Bob Shankly’s side lifted the Scottish League Championship trophy and the following season played in all eight ties as Dundee shocked Europe on the way to the Champions’ Cup semi-final.

During the title winning season, Hammy made his international debut when he played for the Scottish League against a star studded Italian League side at Hampden and the same month made his full international debut against Wales in a British International Championship match. He took over from Celtic’s Dinky McKay and really made the position his own because with the exception of a very experimental Scottish squad which played in Spain in 1962 (Billy McNeil was at right-back as Scotland lost 6-2 in Madrid), Hammy’s 24 Scotland caps were consecutive.

The Daily Record described Hamilton as “the international find of the season” and on November 29th 1961, he was one of three Dundee players who along with Ian Ure and Hugh Robertson, lined up against Czechoslovakia in a World Cup play-off match in the Heysel Stadium in Brussels.

It was the only occasion in the Twentieth century that three Dundee players lined up together in the same Scotland side and in total made 34 appearances in the dark blue of Scotland, 24 of which were at full international level; a record for a Dundee player.

Interestingly Hamilton lined up against England on seven occasions, three with the Scottish League and four with the full side and who never on the losing side. He lined up against Bobby Charlton (who made his Manchester United debut in a 5-1 friendly defeat against Dundee at Dens in 1956) on a number of occasions and told Jim Hendry in his Dundee Greats book that after one match at Hampden, a Scotland player shouted to Alf Ramsey, “if you’re looking for Bobby Charlton, you’d best check in our hamper as he might still be in Hammy’s back pocket.”

In May 1964 Hamilton was a team mate of Charlton’s when they lined up together for the Rest of Europe against Scandinavia in Denmark, coming on as a substitute for Czechoslovakian right-back Bomba.

A month before Hamilton played in the 1964 Scottish Cup Final against Rangers where The Dee lost 3-1 thanks to two late Rangers’ goals and that same season saw Hamilton score his only goal for Dundee when he netted in a 4-3 win at home to Falkirk four days before Christmas.

Hamilton played for Dundee for eleven years and captained the Dark Blues in the latter stages of his career at Dens before moving to South Africa in 1967 where he played for Durban United and managed East Durban United. He returned to the city where he managed Junior side Dundee Violet and returned to Dens Park in 1988 to run the Club’s lottery before becoming a match day hospitality host with full back partner and friend Bobby Cox in 1989.

Alex sadly died in 1993 aged just 57 but his legacy lives on at Dens Park with a hospitality lounge named in his honour and in April 2010 he was inducted into the Dundee FC Hall of Fame.

Honours at Dundee:
Scottish League Champions: 1961/62
European Cup semi-final: 1962/63
Scottish Cup runner-up: 1964
Scotland full caps: 24
Scottish League caps: 8
Scotland Trial International appearances: 2
Rest of Europe appearance: 1
Dundee FC Hall of Fame: 2010 Legends Award

Appearances, Goals:
League: 261, 1 goal
Scottish Cup: 22
League Cup: 55
Europe: 10
Other: 11
Totals: 359, 1 goal