They say in life you should never meet your heroes because you’ll always be disappointed. In football this works differently. You grow up with your heroes as players believing they can do anything. Then one day, some of them return: as your manager, and then let you down. In the case of Dundee United heroes, they let you down spectacularly. Mixu Paatelainen was my hero as a kid. An absolute giant of a man. My dad took me to see us play Aberdeen in a Scottish Cup replay against Aberdeen in 1989 when Mixu scored a penalty in extra time in what ended as a 1-1 draw. I was in awe of him. My old boy always used to talk him up (because he was so good in the air as a player himself he loved seeing boys that were good target men). Mixu visited Ancrum Road Primary when I was in Primary 7 (in 1989 anyway) and it was like Beatlemania as we walked into school and he was standing at the top of the stairs as we all walked in after dinner time. He had a Pringle jumper on. I can still see it now