We’ve all dreamed of pulling on the dark blue of Dundee, and for one of us, the Deefiant season presented the ultimate opportunity. In this podcast, Craig Robertson tells podcast regular Grant all about how the chance to turn out for the Dees came about and his memories of the 2010/11 season. Following on from a piece carried in Nutmeg Magazine and the Guardian, it’s not to be missed.
We’ll be back next week after our inevitable joyless home defeat to Hibs, but in the meantime, if you have any questions, suggestions for future features or discussion points,get in touch with the show on Twitter @provieroadpod or e-mail the show: provieroadpodcast@gmail.com .
With the Hulltoon Herald team all on a long-term investigation, it’s time for some actual site news. We’ve teamed up with a few other fan blogs/podcasts/sites to launch a partnership scheme with TheTwoPointOne, one of the most prominent Scottish football websites out there just now. TheTwoPointOne is dedicated to covering teams across Scottish football – not just the usual two from Glasgow – and tries to inject some relevant data and longer-term thinking into articles about squads, tactics and the wider governance of our national game. We have a subscription and it’s definitely worth it for expanding knowledge of the opposition as well as seeing Dundee with an outsiders’ pairs of eyes (spoiler alert: it’s often not very pretty.)
The partnership scheme benefits readers, our site and TheTwoPointOne – we get 20% of every subscription taken out with our promo code (provieroad), TheTwoPointOne get new subscribers, and you get 10% off a subscription while also helping to support us and drag the site and pod kicking and screaming into the next stage of development.
For more info on the scheme, click here – you can sign up using the promo code provieroadhere.
After an international break hiatus, the usual trio of Gary, Grant and Danny are back to mull over our deadline day deals, bid a fond farewell to Craig “the DAB slayer” Wighton, and to “look forward” to a trip to Ibrox.
We also mention our new association with TheTwoPointOne – sign up to a 2.1 sub using promo code “provieroad” to help us build on the podcast and site (there’s more info on this here).
If you have any questions, suggestions for future features or discussion points,get in touch with the show on Twitter @provieroadpod or e-mail the show: provieroadpodcast@gmail.com .
Our resident podcaster Grant has penned the first of a series of blogs for the site on our shite state of affairs. Grant Hill worships at the altar of Tommy Coyne and Keith Wright. He is also the author of two books – Clubbed to Death and AK-86: Two Shots in the Heart of Scottish Football. You can buy both for the very reasonable price of £10 by emailing Grant.
Let’s Go Round Again (2018 Derry version)
There is a quote routinely credited to former Dundee full-back Albert Einstein that perfectly sums up the situation facing his old club.
Einstein, freed by the Dark Blues after falling foul of the club’s strict rules surrounding hair length, is said to have defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Having appointed 20 managers in less than four decades and racking up almost as many administrations as cup finals in that time, Dundee’s modern history demonstrates that eat sleep sack repeat is no recipe for success.
But just as Gordon Brown’s claim to have ended boom-and-bust proved as premature as a virgin enveloped by Beyoncé, John Nelms’ pledge to eradicate hire-and-fire looks some way off for the minute.
Despite the obvious need to bring stability to the club, the peg Neil McCann’s perennially on-trend cardie hangs upon could hardly be any more shoogly following an unconvincing first season and a calamitous start to this one. Whenever a manager gets his jotters, the football commentariat, who have likely paid very little attention to the events leading up to the sacking, bristle at panic-merchant fans and the short-termism of directors. To which the obvious response is to respectfully tell them to fuck right off because they haven’t had to watch the shite the fans have. Unless you’ve seen your side pumped 3-0 at home by Ayr in a game that Mark fucking Kerr strolled your opinion is invalid.
The brilliant Bands FC project recently used Dundee’s crest as the inspirations for the Average White Band’ badge in recognition of the US-conquering funksters’ roots in the City of Discovery. One of AWB’s best-known records is Let’s Go Round Again. The pairing seems inspired as it looks like we may need to do just that again shortly.
Soul Searching
Analysts will tell you that the most successful teams are the ones who make the fewest managerial changes but the obvious caveat here is that managers at these clubs tend to be doing better than most, hence there being less need to replace them. As Dundee know more than any other club in Scotland, the cost of failure – in this instance relegation – is huge. Are the chances that persisting with an obviously struggling gaffer will lead to long-term improvement great enough to take that risk?
Of those to have managed Dundee over the past 40 years, only Donald Mackay, Archie Knox, Jocky Scott mk I and Jim Duffy mk I have left of their own volition. The rest were moved on one way or another. How many went on to achieve success that gave you reason to think they should just have been given more time? Would playing hide-and-seek up Campy have eventually payed off for Dave Smith? Was taking 7 from Airdrie just a bump in the road towards greatness under Alan Kernaghan? Or were we right to jettison them only to get it wrong when it came to appointing a replacement?
If Duffy II-Kerno and Jocky III-Chisholm taught us anything it’s that ‘any cunt would be better than that cunt’ is possibly the worst shout in football. Sacking Paul Hartley was the right thing to do. Replacing him with a novice with great taste in knitwear but a questionable temperament is looking a worse decision by the game. Yeah, we clearly need to stop switching managers but getting the right one in the first place is key to that.
Pick Up The Pieces
‘I’d rather see us play good football and lose than win ugly’ is another cliché trotted out by fans who haven’t quite thought through its implications. Neil McCann has certainly insisted his team play the ‘right way’ but, other than in increasingly rare patches, it hasn’t worked. As a result, we are actually worse to watch than the supposedly anti-football teams in our league who aren’t afraid to go direct, play the percentages and let their opponents know they are in a game. Losing ugly is the worst of both worlds.
Going back to that quote attributed to Einstein, what does it say about McCann that he keeps trying to play from the back and expect different results? Instead of creating a Derryfull of converts screaming ‘on the kerpit! keep it on the kerpit! Fucking kerpit futba, Dundee!’ the faithful are gripped with fear every time Meekings or Kusunga get the ball played to their feet.
No-one would love McCann to deliver a pus-shutter of a result at this Ibrox than me but the odds are longer than Alan Dinnie’s Mayor of Nairobi (allegedly). After that it’s Hibs at Dens. Even if he was to suddenly embrace pragmatism, it might be too late. To extend the Average White Band metaphor (is it a metaphor? I’ve had a long day), it looks like our board may have to Pick Up The Pieces once again. If so, we can only hope they get the hard part right this time.
The usual trio are back after a short hiatus to rant about our abysmal Cup performance, discuss McCann’s future and be generally miserable – basically just the usual late August feelings for Dundee fans.
If you have any questions, suggestions for future features or discussion points,get in touch with the show on Twitter @provieroadpod or e-mail the show: provieroadpodcast@gmail.com .
We really should’ve known this would happen. Danny, Gary and Ryan get together to rant about the capitulation to Dunfermline in the BetFred Cup, running the rule over our new signings and suggesting some other areas of the park where Dundee need to strengthen. There’s a quick plug at the end for the Cult Heroes XI vote too.
If you have any questions, suggestions for future features or discussion points,get in touch with the show on Twitter @provieroadpod or e-mail the show: provieroadpodcast@gmail.com .
After a summer hiatus, the guys are back to dissect all things dark blue! As well as looking at the overhauled squad and making rash predictions about the quality of our new signings, Danny, Gary and Grant go over the 4-0 victory over Stirling Albion before touching on the club captaincy and Paul McGowan’s court case.
Brexit might be a total fuck up but it’s still going better than Willo Flood’s career, Theresa May has said.
On the back of David Davis’ resignation as Brexit Secretary, the Prime Minister defended her Government’s performance since triggering Article 50 by comparing to Flood’s fortunes over the same period.
The midfielder had his contracted at Indonesian giants Bali United cancelled after just three days when it emerged that he would be denied a work permit on account of the lowly status of former employers Dundee United.
Ironically, Flood had just released a video referencing his final game for the Tannadice side in which he got sent off, pushed over an opponent, had a go at his manager, and shoved a camera out of his face, claiming that the meltdown represented his past but Bali was his future.
The video followed a nine-day stay at Dunfermline Athletic and two years of running around the Tangerines’ midfield getting about as near to the ball as United got to promotion.
“Brexit is a shambles and the country is gubbed, but when you compare it to Willo’s career it’s actually going rather swimmingly,” claimed May while tramping over a field of wheat as a proxy for poor people. “When he left United he advertised his services on LinkedIn saying he wanted to move abroad but then signed for Dunfermline, believing Fife to be a foreign country.
“This showed he possessed the same level of ignorance of geopolitics as David Davis has shown throughout Brexit negotiations and when he was told the truth he asked to be released and go to Bali. Him being the poster boy for United’s ‘Hands up if you’re top of the league’ campaign seems a lifetime ago. At least he doesn’t have that prick Rees-Mogg making snide remarks in Latin every time he lurches to another disaster though.”
In another twist, it emerged that Flood has become a shock contender to replace Davis at the heart of the Government’s Brexit strategy and is set to consult an atlas before deciding between that and an offer from Formartine United.
Experts believe a Scottish football fan’s plan to show his support for Sweden ahead of their World Cup quarter final by having sex with a stereotypically statuesque blonde beauty are wildly optimistic.
Davie Maguire from Blantyre wears his anti-Englishness on his sleeve and has become an avid supporter of whoever Gareth Southgate’s side are playing in Russia. The 34-year-old erroneously believes social media pictures and videos of him consuming products typically associated with these countries have gone viral and plans on raising the stakes further ahead of Saturday’s England-Sweden clash in Samara.
“It started when I took a selfie of me eating cous cous before the Tunisia game and it blew up from there,” said Davie, whose picture attracted three likes. “I didn’t actually bother doing anything before Panama but, as a taxi driver, I’ve not paid any taxes for years so that counts. A photo of me holding a tin of Stella aloft when they played Belgium got crazy shares then I videoed myself tanning a gram and a half of ching and shouting ‘intae they cunts, Columbia!’ My followers nearly doubled at that point.
“Where do you go from there though? Shagging a tidy bird and livestreaming it is the only way to go. She’ll be getting pumped like they English cunts are.”
The renowned Institute for Futba Studies (IFS) have poured scorn on Davie’s plans, however, with Professor Glen Dingies saying, “Davie is an ugly fat bastard with an inconsequential knob and a well-earned reputation for premature ejaculation. He has hee-haw chance of having sex with a leggy Swede unless he’s paying for it.
“His pics and videos have been liked and shared a total of 21 times during the tournament and his followers have gone up because he is deeply unpopular and doesn’t understand what bots are.”
Professor Dingies added that England going through to meet Russia and Davie tanning a Novichok supper might not be a bad thing.
We’ve all picked our all-time Dundee team before, but we at WDTPR want to celebrate the lesser celebrated with a vote to select the Cult Hero XI.
Our vague definition of cult hero is a player who isn’t the Dundee GOAT (not the bleating quadruped drafted in to sort of the grass at the back of the Derry) because football isn’t just about the sublimely talented. It’s also about the personalities, the stories, the moustaches and the maiming of opponents. It’s about your first heroes, the ‘bizarre reason’ favourites, those you offered your spouse to or the subject of inappropriate crushes.
Cult heroes are the flawed geniuses, the hard-as-fuck 100%ers, the ones who lived the dream and those whose name gave itself to a great song irrespective of ability. They are those whose Derry service was brief but memorable and those who spent longer at Dens than an unflushable jobby in the Main Stand. This is the time to champion players we remember for being half-decent in a shite team, or for one goal, performance or other moment of magic.
Let us know who you regard as bone fide Dundee cult heroes and a panel of experts (ie the WDTPR WhatsApp group) will mull over all suggestions before producing a shortlist of candidates for y’all to vote for. Over the course of a few weeks the winners for each position will slot into a 4-3-3 of those we love for reasons other than the obvious.
