World Cup Dees

As the world prepares to enjoy a month long festival of football in Russia, we take a look at the five Dundee players who have gone to the World Cup to represent their countries.

Doug Cowie was the first Dundee player to represent Scotland at the World Cup Finals and is also the second most capped player in the Club’s history.

There are those who would argue that Doug Cowie is the greatest Dee of all time and they certainly have a case. Cowie is the player with the most appearances in a Dundee shirt, is the only Dundee player to have played in two World Cups, won two League Cup winners’ medals, was runner-up in the League Championship and Scottish Cup, won twenty full caps for Scotland, five League caps and one B international cap and is the club’s longest serving player. His sixteen seasons in Dark Blue were to prove to be among the most successful periods in the club’s history and he played alongside some of the greatest names Dundee has ever witnessed.

The highlight of his career came when Dundee won back to back League Cups against Rangers in 1951 and Kilmarnock in 1952 but he missed out on a treble when Dundee lost the 1952 Scottish Cup Final which was sandwiched between the League Cup triumphs. Doug was also part of the Dundee side which finished runners-up in the 1948/49 Scottish League Championship after they lost on the final day at Falkirk to hand the title to Rangers by one point.

In 1953 Doug made his international debut alongside team mate Billy Steel against England at Wembley and the 2-2 draw was the first of twenty caps which make him the second most capped player in the Club’s history.

In 1954 Doug became the first Dundee player to play at a World Cup when he played in two games in the Swiss finals against Austria (0-1) and Uruguay (0-7) and four years later in Sweden played in another two matches against Yugoslavia (1-1) and Paraguay (2-3) which turned out to be his last game for Scotland.

Also in the Scotland squad at the 1958 World Cup was Dundee goalkeeper Bill Brown. Tall and slim, Brown was a safe, unflappable keeper who rarely needed to be spectacular. Quick and agile, he had good positional sense and great concentration, and playing behind Dundee’s famous half back line of Gallagher, Cowie and Boyd he won his first honour when he was part of the Dundee side to win the League Cup in his third season after joining from Carnoustie Panmure.

Bill missed both the 1952 Scottish and League Cup Finals due to being away on National Service but by 1954, he had made the yellow jersey his own. It wasn’t just for Dundee however that he excelled as in 1956 he was honoured for his consistent performances with a Scotland ‘B’ cap against England. The following year he made three appearances for the Scottish League against the English League, Irish League and the League of Ireland and as the World Cup in Sweden approached in 1958, Brown got two more League caps, again against the English League and the League of Ireland.

His performances for the Scottish League were impressive enough for the Scottish selectors to name him in the World Cup squad for Sweden and he got to make his full international debut in the tournament when he took over from Tommy Younger for the final group match against France, in which Cowie was on the bench.

Brown would go on to become the most capped custodian for Scotland with twenty-eight appearances, a record which stood until overtaken by Alan Rough in 1979. Of those caps he earned another three as a Dundee player when he played in all three matches of the 1959 British Home International Championships and it was in the game against England at Wembley in April that he caught the eye of Spurs manager Bill Nicholson who was in the process of strengthening his side.

The next Dundee player to go to a World Cup was another goalkeeper Thomson Allan, when he was part of the Scotland squad in 1974. The Dark Blues have had a fine tradition of good goalkeepers over the years and Thomson Allan certainly fits into that category, winning the League Cup while at Dens and going to the World Cup in West Germany. 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,

Like both Cowie and Brown, Allan is in the Dundee FC Hall of Fame with a Legends Award and his finest moment in a Dundee shirt came on December 15^th 1973 when he was part of the side which won the League Cup at Hampden with a 1-0 win over Celtic.

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.

Dundee had to wait another 28 years until another one of their players went to a World Cup when Chinese captain Fan Zhiyi.

Fan signed for Dundee from Crystal Palace for a fee of £350,000 after helping China qualify for the World Cup for the first time. He played twice for Palace at the start of the 2001/2 season before leaving for China to play in six Asian qualifiers for the 2002 World Cup and scored twice against Oman and Uzbekistan as China won five and drew one to qualify for the tournament being played in Japan and Korea the following summer.

The defender had been the first Chinese player to play in the English League but returned to the UK to sign for The Dee and made his debut against Dundee United at Dens in November. It would be a derby he wouldn’t forget as he was sent off for a second yellow after being adjudged to have dived in a challenge with Jim McIntyre.

In a highly competitive 1-1 draw, nine yellow cards were handed out by referee Stuart Dougal and while the Chinese captain looked to have been treated harshly, he fuelled controversy after the match by calling the official a liar in the press.

Fan therefore had to wait a few weeks to play his second game for The Dee and was superb in a 0-0 draw with Rangers at Dens at the start of December.

Two weeks later Fan scored a stunning goal against the other half of the Old Firm at Celtic Park and despite giving Dundee the lead, they went down 3-1 after Fabian Caballero missed a penalty which would have given them a 2-0 lead.

Fan won the 2001 Asian Confederation Player of the Year (the second time a Dundee player had won a continental Player of the Year after Canadian Jack Cowan won the CONCACAF award in 1951) but in March his Dundee career was effectively over after just five months thanks to a ‘request’ from the Chinese government.

With China having qualified for the World Cup for the first time, the Chinese government wanted their captain and talisman back home to prepare for a tournament on their doorstep and politely made such a request to Dundee.

Dundee Chief Executive and manager Ivano Bonetti therefore flew out to China and an agreement was struck therefore for Fan to return to home town and join Cosco Shanghai until the end of the season. Dundee had hoped that to tie up a twinning agreement with Shanghai and looked to get Chinese Player of the Year Li Tie to Dens but nothing came of it and no more Chinese players came to Dens.

Fan Zhiyi disappeared into the horizon after three goals in 18 games but technically turned out in the 2002 World Cup for China as a Dundee player. Having played in their two warm up games against Thailand and Uruguay in May, Fan played just once in the Finals in a 2-0 defeat to Costa Rica in Gwangju in South Korea and announced his retirement from international football after the tournament having won 106 caps.

In the summer of 2002 Jim Duffy replaced Bonetti as manager and it looked like Duffy may be getting the central defender back when he returned for a meeting a Dens. However the defender insisted that there was a problem with his playing contract, despite being offered the same terms as he enjoyed before the World Cup. He then failed to turn up for a second meeting and Dundee stopped paying his wages and he failed to re-register for Dundee before the transfer deadline.

Fan instead went back to Shanghai and started the season with Cosco but in October he returned to the UK and had a trial with Gillingham before joining Cardiff City the following month. This however prompted a contract dispute between Dundee and Fan with the defender claiming the Dark Blues owed him £500,000. The dispute rumbled on until May 2003 when a Scottish Premier League hearing was called and both parties released a statement saying that they had “settled the matter to our mutual satisfaction.”

The strange tale of Dundee and the Chinese captain was over.

The last Dundee player to feature at a World Cup was another goalkeeper Kelvin Jack. In the summer of 2014 manager Jim Duffy needed to bring in another keeper after Julian Speroni had left for Crystal Palace for £750,000 and with Derek Soutar taking the number 1 shirt, the Trinidad and Tobago international was brought in as cover.

Jack had a poor debut when Dundee had to come from 4-1 down to snatch a 4-4 draw against Hibs at Easter Road. Jack’s home debut was just as unusual when he was brought in to replace the sickness ridden Soutar against Dundee United on November 6^th but he had to go off with a torn thigh muscle in 26 minutes after taking a goal kick!

Despite being ill Soutar had taken a place on the bench and went on to play a blinder in game which The Dee won against the nine man Arabs when John Sutton’s weak header squirmed between the legs of United’s Paul Jarvie.

The following season Jack made 21 appearances for Dundee in the First Division campaign that followed relegation and at the end of the season went to the World Cup in Germany with his country where he played in a 2-0 defeat to Paraguay in Kaiserslautern. Jack had been the first choice Trinidad goalkeeper during the Soca Warriors qualifying campaign and had been due to play opening World Cup game against Sweden but injured his calf in the warm up.

His appearance against Paraguay however meant he was the fourth Dundee player to actually play in a World Cup and after earning 20 international caps while at Dens, he is the Club’s joint second most capped player alongside Cowie.