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STEVE FINAN: Dundee’s professional footballers could learn a lot from my Sunday Welfare League glory days

team photo of Bank Street Athetic Sunday league side in Dundee in 1975-76.
The Bank Street Athletic side that made its Dundee Sunday league debut in 1975-76.

I’m taking a step back in time this week. It is 40 years since I first played in the Dundee Sunday Welfare League.

As an innocent, used to school, BB, and jumpers-for-goalposts football, I was, shall we say, “surprised” by the DSWL.

It wasn’t anything like modern football on TV.

There were some real duffers, some none-too-slim lads, and some pitifully one-footed lads (I was one of them).

But there were also some very good footballers.

image shows the writer Steve Finan next to a quote: "They say Antarctica is a bit nippy but all Dundonian footballers know that Riverside, with a gale machine-gunning sleet into your face, is the coldest place on Earth."

Players whose game perhaps had flaws but who could also produce flashes of genuine skill.

Anyone who tells you amateur football is all hammer-throwers has never played the game.

Though, to be fair, there were also quite a few hammer-throwers.

Great times, great laughs in the Dundee Sunday Welfare League

The pitches were terrible.

A slide tackle at South Road meant blood; knees shredded from the flinty surface.

At Lochee Park, high balls down the wing were impossible due to overhanging trees.

newspaper cutting from the 1980s showing Waterstone Crook Sports Centre Football Club team photo.
Waterstone Crook FC, who played in the Dundee Sunday Welfare league in the 1980s. Former Rangers, Dundee and Scotland international George McLean is in the number 8 shirt.

They say Antarctica is a bit nippy but all Dundonian footballers know that Riverside, with a gale machine-gunning sleet into your face, is the coldest place on Earth.

There were some great teams: DCC, Ninewells, Annfield Road Motors, St John’s, Parkvale, The Bankies, too many to mention.

The team I first played for was Tayside Athletic, full of Beechwood boys.

Great times, great laughs.

Photo shows five men in 1908s fashions holding football trophies
The Albany FC side which played in the Dundee Sunday Welfare AFA league in 1982.

I signed for the newly-formed Bank St Albion in 1985.

There were five divisions, we fought our way up the leagues, jousting with Menzieshill, Harrison, and TS Concept all the way.

The standard of refereeing was…interesting.

It wasn’t unusual for refs to spend the entire game in the centre circle, guessing at offsides.

team photo of the Bank Street Athletic side who played in the Dundee Sunday league in the late 1970s.
The Bank Street Athletic side who played in the Dundee Sunday league in the late 1970s.

I don’t think refs got paid unless the game went ahead, so every pitch was declared playable no matter the weather.

I remember one sodden afternoon at Camperdown with a pond a good 18 inches deep instead of a centre circle.

Hopeless efforts were made to “spike” it with a garden fork but we waded through the full 90.

Dundee Sunday League’s loss was journalism’s gain

I enjoyed the Dundee Sunday Welfare League for 10 years until I broke my leg v Bartons on Claypotts 4.

Black and white photo shows a man surrounded by hundreds of trophies and a sign saying Lochee Trophy Centre and Club Supplies.
Dundee Sunday Welfare AFA match secretary Jim Don with trophies purchased for the end-of-season awards in the early 1980s.

I went into a tackle with a guy named, I think, Paul Allan.

I have no idea where you are now, Paul, but I bear you no ill will.

I’d pushed the ball too far in front, we went for a 50-50, I came off worst.

It wasn’t a foul, it was a full-blooded, fair challenge.

My respects, mate.

Hurtling into tackles, putting your head where boots were flying, was normal.

Every team was desperate not to lose.

I wish I could take modern players back.

Neither of the city’s professional clubs are doing very well at the moment.

The players might learn something from the raw determination to win shown in 1980s Welfare League Third Division games.

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