I
was going to put up one of the National League A-Z series up but then
remembered that its May 21st and that means its 21 years
since that magic day at Hampden when Christian hit the post and then
Brewster hit the net! The Arabs finally, at the 7th time
of asking, lifted the Scottish Cup.
For
those who don't have a clue of what I'm on about..........well have a
look at this.
I
would have loved to be doing an I was there piece, except I wasn't. I
was almost there!
In 1994 I had been at tech for 2 years, and decided
that was enough, and helped by a student loan (back in the days when
they gave you the money in a lump sum including the course fees) I
headed for Scotland.
I was leaving a bit later than I had planned but
knew I'd get a few games in before the end of the season It was only
when I arrived in Amsterdam and picked up a British paper that I
realised that Dundee United were into their 7th Scottish Cup final.
The other
semi-final was between Kilmarnock and Rangers and I wanted Rangers to
win (probably the only time I ever have), my reasoning was that
Kilmarnock were too much like St Mirren or Motherwell and earlier in
the season we had hammered Rangers 3-0 at Ibrox, so we could do it
again couldn't we?
Rangers
won and I had worked out I would be in Scotland when the cup final
was on. So I sent a postcard to Roy, my Dad's best pal. Roy is a big
Jambo, but is well connected so he'd be able to get a ticket
for me I thought. So a couple of weeks later when I arrived at Edinburgh
airport tired and disheveled after a sleepless night in Istanbul, I was met by Roy, who informed me that normally it wouldn't have been a problem, but as Hampden was being redeveloped and the capacity was reduced to 38 000, and United only had 12 000 of those and he hadn't been
able to get any. He'd even tried getting one in the Rangers end! He
did say I could go with him to the Hearts v Aberdeen game that
evening though.........
Having
accepted that I wouldn't get a ticket I decided to hitch a lift with
my mum and her best pal to Skye where I was going to stay with my
Aunt & Uncle. So on the Friday night we were in a pub in
Tillicoultry with my mums pal and her friends, when one of then heard
that I'd been trying to get a ticket for the cup final, she said
“That's a shame, because if I'd seen you on Wednesday I had a ticket
to give away”
then she followed it up with
“you probably wouldn't
have wanted it anyway it was for the Dundee United end” !!!!!
Cup
final day came around and I was nervous, as were all United fans –
all week the press had been going on and on about United's Hampden
hoodoo, as this was our 7th cup final and we were yet to win.
 |
| Ivan Golac & his magic hat |
This year was different, Jim McLean was now chairman and we had a
laid back Yugoslav hippy with a magic hat called Ivan Golac as
manager. He would take the players to Camperdown Park to smell the
roses instead of a training run! The day before the final he took
them down to the Hamilton races instead of training.
The United
fanzine, The Final Hurdle, produced an issue with a suicide pill
attached just in case.
Despite
being promised that we'd be in Portree in time for kick off, we
weren't (I put this down to my mum being a Hibee and not really
understanding what a cup final is about!)
So I had to listen on the
radio. At half time it we switched it off and when it got switched
back on for the 2nd half the first thing I heard was
“....follow up by Craig Brewster to give Dundee United the lead”,
We had scored I'd missed it but I didn't care we were winning. We did
get to Portree with about 30 minutes of the game left all I really
remember is Jerren Nixon coming on and getting booked and then the
whistle went and we had done it, the cup was finally ours!
21st
May 1994
Dundee
United 1 Rangers 0
Hampden
Park
ATT
37 450
Dundee
United :
Guido Van De Kamp, Maurice Malpas, Gordan Petric, Brian
Welsh, Jim McInally, Dave Bowman, David Hannah, Alex Cleland,
Christian Daily, Andy McLaren. Subs Jerren Nixon, Gary Bolan
as
the song says “They've gone down in history, we never can forget,
The day that Christian hit the post then Brewster hit the net”
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