A Memory Test
When the TEK Towers forum (of which I post now and again)
did a new competition asking United fans to pick their favourite game of the
decade I thought to myself, “This is going to be a cracker. I’ve been to so many games in the past 10
years I’ll be able to contribute and will really be able to forensically select
my vote in each round.” Edit: I didn’t actually think this but I thought
something along those lines. It was going to be great to reminisce about the
good times in the SPL from 2010 with it’s obvious high’s of finishing 3rd
and winning the cup through a consistent run of strong league performances from
2010 to 2014. So, when the competition
started something very quickly began to stand out: I couldn’t remember all these wins from
2010-2014 which in some rounds took up one or two of the four choices. These weren’t 2-1 wins on a wet Tuesday night
in Dingwall either. These were 4-0’s against Motherwell (2011) and Kilmarnock
(2012), a 3-0 against Hibs in 2011 and against Inverness Caley in 2012. Why? Had these results become almost routine
during this period? This is not a bad
thing in any way I might add. The United
team of that era was still largely the main components of the team which won
the Scottish Cup in 2010 although by 2012 it had started to break up. They were a very good side which in
historical terms will go down as one of United’s strongest periods of all time.
However, the taking for granted of these types of results clearly made the post-2015
decline even harder to take for our fans and perhaps is at the root of the
criticism which has been levelled at our support several times by ex-players,
managers and pundits, good or bad that a sense of entitlement had developed
amongst sections of our support.
Personally, the decline in standards was so big and happened so quickly,
I think our support was entitled to feel thoroughly short-changed but that’s a
story and a debate for another day. What
this does mean is that this part of the Bipolar Years is probably going to be
the hardest part to write. When I
started this short series, I decided to try and avoid going on the Arab Archive
to avoid the temptation of plagiarising their (excellent) work. Instead I wanted to base it on my own
memories. It’s hard. I’ll try to stick
to key moments. High and low.
Greece is the Word
2010-2011 began with major optimism for United
supporters. A second Scottish Cup
win. A team that on its day looked
invincible. We had a big squad, with
some dead wood needing to be trimmed but it was clear to me that the big
signing that needed to be made was actually the man who had lifted the Scottish
Cup a few months before: Andy Webster.
We waited. And waited. Eventually, the club half-heartedly said that
Rangers wanted to give him another chance now that he had rediscovered form and
fitness so we wouldn’t be signing him. A
disaster in my opinion. Bearing in mind
that in a years-time we would be stung for about 400 grand for Damien Casalunovo
in a tribunal the money could and should have been found for a man who was an
absolute rock and a figurehead at the club.
Lee Wilkie’s extremely sad retirement should have made this even more
urgent. It didn’t. Losing not one, but two captains and top-quality
centre halves should have made the Baldy Snake break the bank to re-sign a
proven leader in Andy Webster. Webby played a handful of games for Rangers that
season if you are lucky. It was a total waste and says more about what an
absolute shitehouse of a club Glasgow Rangers were (past tense) than anything
else. I heard a rumour on good authority
about Rangers playing a League Cup game at Dunfermline that I think they lost
around about this time where they played a lot of fringe players including
Webster. After the defeat, Walter Smith and particularly Ally McCoist
apparently started laying into the Rangers players in the dressing room but
seemingly concentrated the majority or their ire at three players: Webster,
Charlie Adam and Alan Gow. Why? For committing the cardinal sin of being from
the east coast. They were told in no
uncertain terms that they had ‘no character’ and were not ‘Rangers-minded’
enough to win football matches. Hunbelieveable.
Anyway, the excitement for the Athens game was massive. Queuing for ages for tickets seemed like a
good thing back then and a sign we were back in the big-time (Now it just seems
like a sign that the club can’t get their ticketing sorted out). It was a
really warm night, the pitch was immaculate, the place was jumping and then….
And then….
"Why is Goodie playing on the right wing?"
"Do we look lop-sided?
Have we touched the ball yet? Fuck me-they’ve scored. Have we touched the ball yet? Why is Goodie
still playing on the right wing? Are they really-good or have we just bottled
this?"
At least the away leg looked like more fun. I watched it on a dodgy stream like other
hen-pecked Arabs, running about three Facebook chats with other like-minded
souls simultaneously. The concept of the
group-chat had not occurred to anyone back then. Danny Swanson even took a
break from being injured to miss an absolute sitter with a few minutes to go.
Ach well. In answer to the earlier
question: they weren’t that good. We (Houston)
just bottled it for the first 135 of the 180 minutes. Would have got into the Europa League if we’d
won too.
Roy Walker: It’s good but it’s not right
The 2010-2011 season started like the two seasons which
followed it. One word:
Inconsistency. Each season seemed to
take months to get going but every now and again we’d pull out a decent result
or performance. We were never in any danger of relegation but, would sort of
hover around mid-table then ‘kick-on after Christmas’ (Are you aware that Peter
Houston actually trademarked this phrase and makes money whenever anyone says
it?). Sean Dillion and new (old) signing
Scott Severin tended to compete with Garry Kenneth and Darren Dods for the
centre half spots. We still looked
decent at the back but you always felt that it was never quite as solid as it
was in 2009-2010. It was frustrating for supporters who could see the potential
of the team was still there but often Houston seemed desperate to change a
winning formula of 4-4-2, usually trying to shoehorn a half-fit Scott Robertson
in-between Prince and Jimmy for no apparent reason. There were some crackers in
this period though: stuffing Aberdeen 3-1 with 3 goals in the first 9 minutes
knocking the woolly stuffing out of the biggest and most expectant away support
the world has ever seen. McGoo being
sent to the stand was a particular highlight that day as was Keith Watson not
giving a young sheep superstar called Ryan Fraser a kick of the ball. We even won a point at Parkhead with a
last-minute goal by Sean Dillon sending the ‘hilarious’ Celtic support into a
bad-tempered fit of canny-tak-it-ness when United fans bust into a rendition of
Depeche Mode outside Parkhead.
The Day After Tomorrow
By November 2010 we had strikes and no football. This wasn’t a full-scale return to the ‘Winter
of Discontent’ (although I’d have been well-up for that) with power-cuts and
afternoon kick-offs or postponements but instead was a wet-pump of a strike by
various unions including my own in the name of trying to prevent ridiculous
changes to public sector pensions. Millions were out. It made no difference sadly. Half of the English
and Welsh cunts that were involved that day probably voted Tory last week in
the General Election in order to ‘Get Brexit Done’. Idiots.
I got nearly a week off work because of the snow which was ace and
largely entailed taking about two hours to walk to Tesco each day for supplies in scenes reminiscent of ‘The
Day After Tomorrow’ and having to stop in at the West End Bar in Forfar
on the way back for a couple of pints to rest my weary body. The football
couldn’t go ahead because for six weeks, not strictly because of the weather (although
it was horrendous for a spell), but because the pavements around Tannadice were
covered in about 6-8 inches of compacted ice and were like a death-trap. However,
our local council didn’t appear to want to do anything about it (same as in Angus). At my work several kids also fell and broke
bones in the playground because of the same situation but the council did
nothing about that either. Until that is, they were informed that the-then Cabinet
Secretary for Education was attending a function at our school and within the
hour a fleet of ice-breakers appeared and cleared the playground and car
park. Cue a rather angry PT’s meeting
the following day when the HT was told in no uncertain terms to tell his bosses
at the Council that they were a disgrace and didn’t give a shit about ordinary
people, only caring about impressing their paymasters at Holyrood. Anyway, United never had a game for about six
weeks. We played Hibs first game back
and a big United support, myself included went to see a brave performance where
Goodie scored a cracker early-on, Jon
Daly played at the back for the first time and strolled it, Danny Swanson took a break from being injured
to get himself sent-off by punching the ball into the net and, a knackered
United team couldn’t prevent a late Hibs equaliser in the second half. Within a few games we were back up to speed
and had started to get our act together. David Goodwillie had grown into our
star-man and had gained cult-hero status following CCTV footage of him
battering some total arsehole who had blind-sided Danny Swanson with a
horrendous punch after Swanson had admittedly made a really tasteless remark to
a boy with learning difficulties. I
would add that in the company of Swanson’s assailant was a young United player
called Scott Allan (more on him later). Swanson was never consistently the same player again for United.
A low point if ever their was one
It’s not often the BBC Scotland News bulletin comes on and Dundee
United are the first word that comes out of the reporter’s mouth. Personally, the next words she said had me
thinking I was in the fucking Twilight Zone. “…has been charged with rape.” It
got worse. He wasn’t the only one involved.
David Robertson was mentioned as being involved as well. Goodie was a hero. But, I always had a soft-spot
for Happy Feet even before he scored the winner against Rangers (DEADCO). Maybe it was the funny run, or the fact he
looked so frail that he’d snap in a challenge or it was the fact that he could
ghost into the box at the last second and score goals better than anyone I’d
ever seen. I really don’t want to comment too much on this. There is nobody who comes out of this well in
my opinion. Will we ever know the full
truth of what happened that night? I
doubt it. What I do know is that the
case never went to a criminal trial due to lack of evidence, but that says more
about how our legal system deals with cases of this nature than the case
itself. I also know that the case eventually
went to the Civil Courts and Goodie and Robertson were found guilty ‘by the
balance of probability’; a lower burden of proof. I also know that they should
never have put themselves in that position.
Two men taking a smashed lassie ‘up-the-road’. It shouldn’t have been either of them. Even if she wasn’t hammered, two blokes
taking one lassie ‘up-the-road’ for sex is fucking creepy in my opinion. United and their support were left in a quandry
about i) whether or not to play him and ii) how to respond to him. Singing, “He does what he wants,” was not the
best way to show support in my opinion but it must be said that this was
probably a response to the off-the-scale stick he was getting at every ground
in Scotland. Hypothetically, had this
actually gone to trial and the allegation, proven to be completely false it
could have ruined his career (and his life) anyway.
Someone with a different mentality would have crumbled under it. Goodwillie actually started playing better
and better and by the end of the season was probably the best player in
Scotland.
The Bipolar Week/He's Offside
United were beset by injuries from the new year onwards but
really started to ‘kick-on’ ™. We were
starting to look more like the team from the cup winning season with Swanson and Conway
playing wide more often and either Prince or a fit-again Scott Robertson
playing in midfield with Jimmy Gomis and playing well. We largely navigated the
fixture pile up playing about 5-6 games in 15 days, most of which were at home,
which was great fun since it involved pretty much going on the drink every
third night for two weeks. We scudded
Aberdeen again in what was Danny Swanson’s finest hour in a Tangerine jersey, even
though we were playing with ten men plus some boy who allegedly played for Ajax
and who’s only attribute was to boot the ball about 100 yards away from him,
regardless of which direction he was facing in. We played in a classic in the
Scottish Cup against Motherwell with Goodwillie scoring goal of the season with
an overhead kick. However, the game
ended in a draw and a big support headed to Fir Park with the older fans hoping
for a re-run of the 1994 replay and a Brain Welsh-style winner. What we got was a Hillsborough-style crush on
the stairs (Fir Park is bizarre in that you can freely access the top or bottom
tier) and an utterly shite United performance.
The next few days were meltdown-central online with a few people even questioning
Houston’s position. Our next match was
at Ibrox. We had lost heavily to them
earlier in the season at Tannadice (although we were cheated to fuck in my
opinion: see the pictures I screenshotted from Arabzone below). Kova was sent off, even though the ball was
past him when he caught Naismith, Gomis gave away a penalty which was a blatant
dive and the other, earlier penalty was outside the box.
I have been sitting on these photos for years waiting for this moment of bitterness. I
really wasn’t expecting anything other than a repeat on the Saturday so tried to avoid the
score and went to Thompson Park to watch Tayport against Lochee United. When I got back to the car and turned on the
radio it was 2-1 Rangers (Old). So, when
I started driving up to Tesco to pick up a few things I was pleasantly
surprised to hear Johnny Russell score a bullet header. I stopped in the car park and decided to
listen to the last few minutes. The next
bit was like when Del Boy and Rodney become millionaires and get back in the
van outside the auctioneers as Goodie scored a last second winner (“He’s
offside”). My car was shaking from side
to side and the horn was going and everything.
Quality. https://youtu.be/CCf24hF_Zco
This game spurred us on to a run for the final few games of
the season and we qualified for Europe again.
Goodie was all over the front and the back pages as club after club were
offering serious money whilst Rangers (soon to be a blue parrot) were offering taxpayers money but
as disappointing as this was going to be if he left United fans knew our financial position was
becoming difficult. Largely because Stephen Thompson was going on about it in
the press every day. Fans were willing
to allow him to go, as long as the price was right. The Rangers game had also showed us that Johnny
Russell, his replacement, was waiting in the wings and had very similar
potential. It was still looking
good. I remembered a lot more than I expected. Fuck me.
Ach well, the next load of stuff will come soon. If I can get around to it. Maybe.
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