It was an exceptional feat, of that there’s no doubt, but Dundee United fans who know the history of their club will tell you Lawrence Shankland’s four goals against Inverness at the weekend do not make him unique.
Because, by our reckoning, as welcome as the hitman’s double brace to mark his league debut -see video below – was, staggeringly it was the 35th time a Tangerines player has struck four, or more, in a single outing.
As that number suggests, such scoring exploits have not been as rare as you may have thought.
What’s true is, in the modern era, they have become less frequent, but, even then, there will still be many Arabs who, with a little jogging of the memory banks, can say they’ve seen it all before.
Last time it happened was 22 years ago as United recorded their then biggest-ever European wins, over Andorran minnows Principat in the Uefa Cup.
Four of the eight they chalked up in the away leg were netted by a young Robbie Winters, meaning, for once, a hat-trick hero in Gary McSwegan had to play second fiddle when it came to getting the match ball.
McSwegan would get a hat-trick in the second leg at Tannadice as his side again broke their Euro record by hitting nine.
The previous year the striker had already joined the four-in-one-go club when he blasted that number past Dumbarton in a league game at Tannadice, just a few months after Craig Brewster had also knocked in four against the Sons.
Doing it in the top flight should, by definition, be harder and the last player to hit four at that level was former boss Mixu Paatelainen.
He did it in front of less than 2,000 fans when, like Shankland, he got all the goals, this time in a 4-0 win over Morton at Cappielow towards the end of the 1987/88 season.
Fittingly, the record for most goals scored in 90 minutes of top-flight football is held by, arguably, the best striker to come through the ranks at Tannadice.
They came when the legend that is Paul Sturrock hit five of seven against Morton at Tannadice in November 1984.
One of Sturrock’s many strike partners, Willie Pettigrew, is another of the men to have hit four. He has a special place in fans’ memories for doing it in a 5-1 Scottish Cup derby hammering of Dundee in 1980.
Not surprisingly, and encouragingly so far as Shankland goes, many of the multiple scorers are among the best seen at the club.
Another great to hit four was early ’70s sensation Andy Gray. He did it while still in his teens in an old First Division clash with Dumbarton.
Prior to that, those hitting four or more did so outside of the highest division of the time.
Even so, it was always a tally worthy of note and there are some prolific scorers on the list. One who stands out is Willie Ouchterlonie, not least because, in less than two years in the mid-1930s, he twice hit five in one go and four in another game.
The record for most goals in a single competitive game is held by a man whose exploits on both sides of Tannadice Street were remarkable.
He was Albert Juliussen and the six he hit against St Bernard’s in the wartime Supplementary Cup was one of eight occasions he hit three or more.
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Juliussen’s record was just as impressive when he moved to Dundee. Averaging more than a goal-a-game for the Dark Blues with 95 in 73 appearances, he’s their joint top scorer in a single game.
He got seven in a B Division clash with Dunfermline at Dens Park in March 1947. Dundee won 10-0 that day, astonishingly for the second outing in a row.
Their previous game, away to Alloa, had finished the same, though that time Juliussen had to be content with just six of the total haul.
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