Dundee United fans have agreed to put £100,000 into the club to ease the financial pressure on owner Mark Ogren.
Am I surprised? Absolutely not.
Why? Because we’ve seen it before in Dundee.
When the football clubs in the City of Discovery need their fans to stand up and be counted, you better believe they’re going to do it.
For all United and Dundee fans have their differences at times, they’re the same in one important way – they are fiercely loyal.
Football means a lot to people in Dundee.
And in United’s case, this time around, I think fans can see Mark Ogren has put more than a fair amount of money into the club over the last couple of years.
Earnings hit hard to take
When he came in, he freshened a lot of things up.
He bought Tannadice. He bought Gussie Park. The stadium got a bit of sprucing up. The squad got investment.
None of these things come cheap.
He has said himself he spent more than he expected to in order to get the club into the Premiership.
And off the back of that, just when he probably expected to start seeing some money coming back into the club, the pandemic hit.
There’s no such thing as a good time for something like that to happen at any club.
But with the extra expenditure at United, suddenly having their earnings shut off must have been especially hard to take.
United fans have obviously clocked the money that the owner has put in, so fair play to them for stepping up to do their bit in return.
I’ve seen the sort of troubles that owning a football club can bring with it.
To be honest, I think you’d have to be mad to want to get involved in that.
Look at Dermot Desmond at Celtic – a billionaire who gets nothing but hassle from being involved in football.
You simply won’t ever be able to keep everyone happy.
Football hotbed
Mark Ogren will probably have gotten a wee taste of that since he came in at United.
But what the fans have shown him is that when the chips are down they will always be there, just like they were at Dundee.
This is a great city to live in and its football fans play a big part in that.
They are passionate about their clubs but they can go for a beer together no problem.
They are also extremely generous. So all credit to them for putting their hands in their pockets every time they have been asked.
