Let’s make our City of Discovery the BIG winner

As acute as the pain of the league toils of Dundee and Dundee United over the last eight months have been, the real disappointment of this season has been the upsurge in instances of hooliganism.

Throughout Europe, the 2004-2005 campaign has been blighted by incidents like the thrown lighter that injured referee Anders Frisk during a Champions’ League game in Rome, the riot among Italian fans during their World Cup win over Scotland at the San Siro and the disgraceful downpour of flares that brought the Inter-Milan derby to a premature end earlier this month.

On the domestic scene, there have been coins and other missiles thrown during SPL fixtures at Tynecastle, Parkhead and, only last Sunday, Ibrox.

Sadly, it seems crowd violence is an unwanted fashion right now and, with so much at stake in tomorrow’s relegation derby at Dens Park, there has to be a real worry it could spread to the City of Discovery.

That’s why the message to fans heading for the big game has to be stark and simple — behave or else.

Without wishing to exaggerate what has never been a major problem, covering matches involving the Dark Blues and Tangerines over the last two decades has shown me that both have an undesirable element among their supports.

And it must be hammered home to them that Dens is no place for them to copy the idiots of elsewhere and cause bother if things do not go their team’s way.

This is without doubt the biggest derby since the 1980 League Cup Final. Like then, if there is a winner they and their fans will be ecstatic.

Unlike then, the losers will not have the consolation of having played well to get to this game. They won’t be leaving with runners-up medals, but with the clear and present dangers of financially-crippling relegation.

Saying defeat will hurt tomorrow is a bit like referring to the plague as nothing more than a sniffle.

The losers will hurt and hurt a lot, but that will not be an excuse for anyone — on the field or off it — losing their cool and, with it, their dignity.

No-one can expect the defeated side of the city to be smiling come the end of the 90 minutes, but they can be expected to behave.

For all that is at stake, yet again this is a chance for the people of Dundee to show that, when it comes to derbies, we have the right approach.

It’s a long time since any religious nonsense determined the policy of either club and those who would follow them, and unlike derbies elsewhere, there has never been a need for police to segregate fans when they are still hundreds of yards away from the ground.

There’s also been a habit here of mates meeting for a pint before the game, heading to opposite ends of the ground to back their team and then meeting up in the pub afterwards.

If that is the case tomorrow and the game has passed without incident, then, whatever the result, the big winner will be the city of Dundee.

That’s what we hope for — and that is the way it must be.

Predictions — Celtic v. Hibs — HOME; Hearts v. Motherwell — home; Aberdeen v. Rangers — draw; Dundee v. Dundee United — away; Livingston v. Dunfermline — home; ICT v. Kilmarnock — home.