I approached Colin Judge as to whether he would like for me to find a Section for Articles involving the "Capital Dark Blues", CDB's on my site.
He has agreed and the following is an excellent article on their Annual Sportsman Dinner.
I'm sure all who read what follows, will agree, it sounds like an evening to remember.
Special thanks in the Editing of this article go to James Hoyle, Terry Fallows and David Glen, who also supplied the photographs.
We decamped en masse from Logie Baird’s, leaving it somewhat quieter for the bemused staff and patrons, and made our way next door to the Crowne Plaza. The downhill amble was welcome for the one or two who’d started the libation at a keen pace! (As can be seen below)
Once inside, and topped up with the obligatory drink (purely social mind you!), we found ourselves in the room where proceedings were to take place. It was a long room, though not overly narrow, with the walls decorated with DFC jerseys from down the years and various national flags. The top table was well placed in the middle of the rear long wall, giving all present a not-too-distant view of the main speakers. A quick scan round the room revealed that Fabian Caballero and his partner were in attendance.
Juan Sara and his partner plus, Steven Tweed, from the current side, were in attendance, with Bobby Wishart, George Stewart, Bobby Ford, Thomson Allan and Davie Johnston from past great teams also there. Grant Anderson from the CDB’s introduced and compered for the speakers, and showed a ready wit with beer and wine-fuelled wags who decided to share their thoughts aloud with the rest of us. However, I’m sure Grant expected little else from a room mostly full of bevvied Dundonians, and everything remained good natured.
With the excellent three course dinner served and well-enjoyed, we settled back for our first main guest, Sunday Telegraph writer Patrick Barclay, who himself follows the One (Dark) Blue Faith. In fact, before previously learning this, I was recently watching some sports chat programme and became impressed by the urbane and knowledgeable pundit (not unlike Jean Luc-Picard from Star Trek TNG) only to fall off my seat in disbelief when he said (on national TV) “…and of course my team are doing rather well these days, Dundee FC!”. Which kind of divulges that I’m not a Telegraph reader; sorry Paddy, I read the real “Tully”! Anyway, he overcame what for me seemed to be a little nervousness, and paid tribute to the skill and quality of the current team and the ambition of the directors, management and staff. He concentrated for most of the time on his memories of the Dundee of the Sixties, the league-winning side and the regular Euro runs, and spoke with great feeling and genuine passion. Paddy lauded the City of Dundee for producing two European and UEFA Cup luminaries, and went off to a warm ovation from the floor.
Next we had the legendary Ian Ure, a man who I’d only ever seen on the recent DFC video. To have him merely a few feet away, and considering all he’s achieved in the game, was pretty awe-inspiring! Ian came to the podium and told us that he was no after dinner speaker, but his matter-of-fact, conversational style in the context of a Q & A session suited both him and the audience well. He fascinated us with on-the-spot accounts of the mood of the team in the San Siro, delighted us with tales from the famous Ibrox and Cologne games, and uplifted us with the vivid recollection his personal elation that day at Muirton. Indeed, it was that historic day at Perth that Ian considered to be his career highlight. It was a privilege to hear from this great servant of DFC about the times when we were considered to be the best, especially for those of us in the room too young for any of these events. It got me thinking that perhaps we should get the survivors of the 61-62 team together again to pay them due tribute as we approach the 40th anniversary of the club’s greatest domestic triumph and near-mastery of Europe. The fact that we’ve rarely even got on the first rung towards emulating those achievements in the ensuing 40 years serves, in my mind, to demonstrate just what a phenomenon that team was. Ian got a standing ovation and there was a real outpouring of warmth and affection for him.
The final main speaker was George Duffus who had the audience in raptures with his take on the various accents from around Scotland, particularly the east coast. George admitted that his game was of the egg-chasing variety (Soccer a.m. viewers will know what I mean!), although that had no effect whatsoever on his routine: it was genuinely one of the funniest half hours or so I’ve ever experienced. His style of delivering local interest stories in the vernacular was hysterical and his ad-libbing was just as sharp too, as one errant (and unfortunately for him!) self-confessed Fifer found to his cost! A quick glance at Juan, Fab and their partners betrayed their utter bemusement with the gales of laughter that followed the words of this multi-accented performer. I suppose learning Queen’s English is hard enough without having to understand its myriad of Scottish variations! Even at this point, the evening was well on the way to becoming a unique occasion in a unique season for the CDB’s: however things were to get even better!
The inimitable, ubiquitous and omnipotent Wullie Tanner stormed the podium with a “major announcement”! What could it be? A murmur spread; Batistuta? Baggio? Surely no’ Wullie buying a round?! All became clear: with the committee having sworn a vow of secrecy beforehand.
Oor Wullie revealed that the CDB’s had sponsored Fab Cab’s new Ford Focus Zetec. A fantastic achievement for a club that has grown in stature analogous to the fortunes of DFC, having experienced similarly heady days in the 80’s, dwindling through the dark ages of the Cook/Holmes/Dixon retrenchments and various false starts, to the current resurgence and influx into the club of younger, er… talent!
The committee’s impressive organisational capabilities were rewarded, one by one, with most of the evening’s raffle prizes! You’d think we were back in the San Siro, 1963, with cries of “fix” and “foul”! One of the raffle prizes was Juan’s "JESUS LOVES YOU" t-shirt’s, and judging by the reaction of the audience when it was won, you’d think it was the Deity Himself who’d appeared among us. It’s well known that His Dad’s a Dundee supporter anyway…and indeed His work was apparent in the very lovely young ladies suitably attired in DFC kit who took our ticket money with the minimum of pain and who lent their kissers (literally!) to the goggle-eyed winners.
The evening wound up at the Crowne Plaza at about midnight although a large number of the die-hards and battered husbands made their way down to Why Not night-club on George Street. We took the opportunity of treating the guid Embra toonsfolk to a few better known DFC ditties, the content revealing that despite non-sensical PC pressure to drop references to it earlier in the season, the “Derry” remains very much alive and well! I could report tales of misdeeds, knock-backs and fisticuffs, but for the sake of the guilty its better to let sleeping dogs lie. And some of the boys should certainly have done that, although the attraction of bacon and eggs the next morning was obviously uppermost in some minds! Not content with embarrassing themselves dancing to ABBA, some CDB super-troupers made it to Bar Napoli on Lothian Road for extra libation after Why Not closed, by which time the sun was up and it was Monday, and a holiday to boot! It doesn’t get much better than that…
And so you have it: another never-to-be-matched night out in the Capital with the Dark Blues. That is, until next year!