Peter Marr’s tale about Scottish Junior football tops at Downfield (October 27) prompted a former Spiders official to reply.
Sam Barnes was a vice-president and president of Downfield JFC.
“I was interested to see the tale about the Downfield strip and, in particular, George Robertson’s strip,” said Sam.
“We had a player playing for us called Jimmy Gray. His brother Murray, who had MS, was in a wheelchair but he used to come to many of the games.
“George ‘Doddie’ Robertson was his neighbour in Craigiebank and him and wife used to look out for Murray, helping him whenever they could.
“They were good friends and very helpful to Murray.
“Doddie, who was capped for Scotland while playing for Violet, gave the strip to Murray.
“He brought it up to the club and we framed it and hung it on the wall.
“That’s obviously not the strip in the photo featured in Peter’s story.
“We had a successful spell under the Grier brothers and had several players capped.
“These included Davie Baikie, Grant Clark, Gus Malone, Derek Mitchell and others.
“The strip in the photo could belong to one of them.”
In addition to being an office-bearer of the Downfield football club, Sam held the same posts — vice-president then president — of the social club.
In all, he was part of the club for over 30 years.
* Dundee’s goalscoring prowess in the season they won the league title in 1961-62 prompted Jeff Robertson to contact BwB.
He offered: “Your recent article on Andy Penman scoring five goals in a friendly in 1962 rings a bell with me.
“As a young boy at the time, I remember my dad and older brothers coming home from that game and saying: ‘Dundee just can’t stop scoring at the moment!’.
“What was Dundee’s scoring record around that time?”
Andy’s five-goal spree came against Swedish outfit Elfsborg on November 22, 1961.
Their previous two results were league wins against Rangers (a, 5-1, Nov 11) and Raith Rovers (h, 5-4, Nov 18).
Have a story to share with John? Email: jbrown@dcthomson.co.uk
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