The name Dickie Rooks might not mean a lot to Dundee fans or football fans generally in Scotland.
However, he is one of the most unluckiest players NEVER to play for Dundee.
It was in 1964 that Dundee were looking for a replacement for Ian Ure, who had gone south to Arsenal for £62,500.
Dens boss Bob Shankly had heard good reports about Sunderland reserve centre-half Rooks and, after watching the player himself, despatched trainer Sammy Kean to run the rule over him in an end-of-season game.
Unfortunately, Rooks broke his arm in the game.
Dundee wanted to see him in action again at the start of the following season but were told he had been injured in a car crash. They were alerted again when he was fit but his first game back saw him taken off with a badly-cut eye.
It seems Rooks was just never destined to play for the Dens men.
The Dark Blues felt they could wait no longer as they needed to fill a void in the No 5 jersey and plumped for Hibs defender Jim Easton.
He was out of favour at Easter Road after John Stein brought in John McNamee from Celtic.
Rooks eventually got his move and, after £20,000 changed hands, he went to Middlesbrough in August 1965, playing over 130 times for the Ayrsome Park outfit. He also played for Bristol City and managed Scunthorpe United, then had a spell coaching Zanzibar.
It has to be said, though, that Dundee didn’t do too badly with Easton.
He turned out nearly 180 times for Dundee, with his only goal coming against FC Zurich in the quarter-finals of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup — a victory that took the Dee to a two-leg
semi-final against Leeds United.
Fitness-wise, it also wasn’t plain sailing for Easton before his move to Dens.
Normally, if a player breaks a leg, prospective suitors would back off for a while to see if the player recovers well and gets back to form.
I would imagine, if the same player breaks a leg again a year later, then it would be a case of ‘what might have been’.
Shankly obviously saw something in the former Drumchapel Amateur as Easton had only recently returned to playing after breaking a leg against Airdrie at Broomfield.
He actually found form quickly and captained the Scotland U/23 team against Wales.
Not long after that international outing, he broke his other leg against East Stirling at Firs Park.
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