Running up and down the mountain side before breakfast

Periodically, my good buddy COLIN “TUSH” McDONALD comes back to Dundee from his home in New Zealand and we always meet up.

As you can imagine, these get-togethers are always great events, where old times are talked about — and nearly all involving football.

The early football careers of Tush and I ran parallel as we played together for Butterburn Youth Club, then Lochee Boys Club, then East Fife, then Broughty Athletic.

In the early 1970s, though, Tush emigrated to New Zealand with his wife Margaret, and they have been there ever since.

Also going out to Wellington at the same time was DAVIE GOLLAN, and I hadn’t seen him until just recently when he came home with Colin for respective relatives’ 80th birthday parties.

I never played in the same club team as Davie, but he remembers that we teamed up in an Angus Amateur select side.

“I’ve got a photo of that team,” said Davie, to which I replied I was pretty sure I had one, too.

“I remember us doing very well in that particular Scottish Cup, but basically being cheated when we played through in Glasgow. That used to go on a lot when you headed west.

“It was nearly impossible to get a result — and nothing to do with playing ability.

“It happened to me again when I was with my club side St Francis.

“What really got to me, though, was that our referees, like the great Vic Ruse, were more than fair to west sides when they came through here.

“It would be great if you could put that photo in your column, which is well read by all the Dundee ex-pats in Wellington and other cities in NZ.”

There is another non-football story concerning Davie. It was the early 1970s and I was at the Caird Hall with my mate Stuart Kennedy to see Rod Stewart and the Faces.

Rod, being Rod, entered the stage at the start of his gig and proceeded to boot plastic footballs into the crowd. Stuart and I were up in the side balcony and one of the balls was heading straight for us.

As Stuart and I made ready to do battle with each other to grab what we thought of at the time was a fantastic memento, a massive pair of hands appeared over us and out of nowhere, grabbed the ball as it sailed over.

It was Gollan the goalie.

He turned around, smirking, with a look that said “Hard luck, chaps”, but, obviously, that was not the exact words a proud Kirkton born-and-bred punter would use.

Also in the photo at the foot of this column is JIMMY COOPER and, with the great Ferenc Puskas passing away recently, another story concerning Jimmy and myself came to mind.

Jimmy was my team-mate at Lochee Boys Club and, after several trials at grounds such as Gayfield and Montrose for North of the Forth players, we were chosen to attend a weekend at Dalguise with a view to being selected for the final pool of players to represent Scotland.

The Puskas reminder is that, one evening, the coaches set up a projector and screen and showed the entire 1961 European Cup Final between Real Madrid and Eintracht Frankfurt, which the Spanish maestros won 7-3.

Can you imagine that nowadays . . . 10 goals in a final?

Anyway, folklore now tells of how great the all-white Spaniards were, with Alfredo di Stefano and Francisco Gento causing havoc in the German defence every time they were on the ball — and sometimes when they were not, given the fantastic runs into space they made. It was 90 minutes of football, with a commentary by the legendary Kenneth Wolstenholme, that an impressionable 17-year-old never forgets.

Dalguise houses a sore point for me . . . and I mean SORE!

The coaches for the weekend seemed to be infatuated by fitness, rather than skill, and I recall having to run up and down one of the mountains which overlooked the outdoor facility at Dalguise.

It was probably just a hill, but it seemed like a massive mountain at the time . . . and all this was before breakfast!

I was that sore in the thighs that I wouldn’t do myself justice in the trial game in the afternoon and just felt heavy-legged all through the game.

That’s no excuse for not making the team. There were some great players there from the Lothians and the west coast, and it would have been quite a surprise to me if I had made the final squad.

Alas, Jimmy failed to make it, too.

I see him every now and then, and I think he stays in the St Mary’s/Ardler area of Dundee.

DONALD DID WEAR SCRUM CAP

Steve Gracie emailed to confirm Andy Hutt’s tale about Donald Mackay wearing a scrum cap for Dundee United.

“Ged Reilly came on for his debut in goal with just less than 20 minutes left after Mackay went off with a cut head against Newcastle United on Tuesday, September 15, 1969 in the Fairs Cup. The gash on his head was about three inches long,” said Steve.

“Mackay then played on Saturday, September 20 against Dundee and he was, indeed, wearing protective headgear.”

WHO WON OTHER TWO TROPHIES?

Jim Christie read last week’s story about St Joseph’s winning six trophies in season 1961-62.

But he asks, “Who won the two they missed out on — the Scottish Cup and the Forfarshire Cup?”

Kirkintilloch Rob Roy won the Scottish, but we have no record of the winners of the Forfarshire Cup.

Maybe a BwB reader can come to the rescue?