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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Had to laugh at the spying row with Derby v Leeds. When I played with David Low’s sports shop Dundee Sunday league side (Two games in a row unbeaten, season 1980/81) opponents often spied on us training. Ok they were there for the laughs but it showed a certain level of respect🤨
— Jim Spence (@JimSpenceDundee) January 12, 2019
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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