Gord help us if Raith win tomorrow
Saturday, April 10, 2010 Tomorrow my team (Dundee United) play Gordon Brown's team (Raith Rovers) in the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup. Sadly I can't be in Glasgow for the game because I shall be in Bury St Edmunds watching my son play rugby. (His club are currently "on tour" in Suffolk.)
Raith are in the bottom half of the Scottish First Division while Dundee United are enjoying their best season since 1997 and are currently third behind Rangers and Celtic in the SPL.
That means nothing, however, because the match is at Hampden and United have a shocking record at the national stadium where we have won just one Scottish Cup final in seven attempts.
In Scotland you expect to get beaten by Celtic and Rangers. Even if you outplay them - as United occasionally do - the referee will find some excuse to give them and their legions of screaming supporters a helping hand. (Bitter? Moi?)
United, however, like to go one better. Who can forget 1987, the year we reached the UEFA Cup final (beating Barcelona and Borussia Mönchengladbach on the way)? OK, we lost to Gothenburg in the final but, unaccountably, we also managed to get beaten by St Mirren in the final of Scottish Cup. No-one saw that coming, least of all me.
Four years later the Scottish Cup was again there for the taking. We just had to turn up and collect the trophy ... except that Motherwell (Motherwell!) won 4-3 after extra-time.
(A few years earlier United beat Motherwell 6-0 at Tannadice and the manager, Jim Mclean, fined the players for not winning by an even greater margin. Following the cup final defeat in 1991 the United players were so mortified that three of them got sent off after the match. And, yes, I was there.)
The Hampden hoodoo - broken only by a solitary Scottish Cup win in 1994 - continues in the League Cup. To date we have lost three out of four finals in the stadium. The fourth was a 0-0 draw with Aberdeen in 1979 following which we won the replay 3-0 at Dens Park, home of our neighbours Dundee. (The following year we retained the trophy but only because our opponents were Dundee themselves and they decided to play the final in ... I see you're ahead of me.)
The good news, I suppose, is that United wouldn't have such a terrible record in cup finals if they hadn't won so many semi-finals in the first place.
The bad news is that losing to Gordon Brown Raith Rovers would be worse than losing to Dundee (which is very very bad indeed).
That, my friends, is how important tomorrow's match is. If Gordon's team prevails, I fear it may be a sign that he is going to win the general election.
Only Dundee United can save us.
Simon Clark
My best-ever Scottish Cup final was 1994 (Jim Spence, BBC Sport)
Simon Clark
"I’ve always said that, purely going an anecdotal evidence, Dundee United have the best supporters in Scottish football." (Graham Spiers, The Times)
Reader Comments (1)
So who will win the election if Dundee United win? I hope it is not a draw - hang man awaits.
Is is worth making a William Hill investment as a result of this match?