I belong to that sept of the clan of Dundee FC supporters who think moving to a new stadium-crematorium-hotel-housing-and-other-stuff development is borderline certifiable.
But then my family’s attachment to Dens Park stretches unbroken for 116 years to the day my grandfather Bob Crumley made his first team debut in 1906.
So you might expect me to be particularly thirled to the place, determinedly resistant to moving anywhere else.
Guilty as charged then.
But this is not about nostalgia, for all that I have stockpiled a wheen of memories.
I had a look at the club’s new video in response to the letter of protest from the disaffected legions.
It was the least I could do and I was brought up to be polite.
My conclusion is that this is a property developer’s response rather than a football fan’s.
What about what the fans want?
Hardly any of what is proposed is remotely relevant, far less necessary, to satisfying the three priorities that any right-thinking fan craves above all else.
Should you be in any doubt, these would be putting a good, competitive team on the pitch and being able to watch it in an environment which is architecturally just a little less post-industrial-apocalypse than what Dens Park has become.
And a good pie.
We are excited to issue a club update and reveal new animations that show the stadium development at Camperdown #thedee
➡️ https://t.co/TKqsQN6MgW pic.twitter.com/GvHaB43zAv
— Dundee Football Club (@DundeeFC) March 24, 2022
The proposed crematorium next door would not dignify the new surroundings for either the club or the crematorium.
As for the football that has been on offer of late, it can perhaps best be characterised by the distinct possibility that next season we will play in a lower league than Arbroath.
No disrespect to Arbroath, who are accomplishing wonders this season and in a stadium that is less than state-of-the-art.
If I owned a hat, I would take it off to Arbroath.
And of course all of the above – the complaint – is the easy bit.
That the complaint is justified is beyond doubt, or at least it is from where I am sitting.
But without an alternative strategy it’s just so much hot air.
And there is enough of that on the club video.
A different future for Dens Park
So, if I had the wherewithal (I don’t but there are people out there who do), here is the alternative strategy.
At the very least, my ambition for it is to mitigate the disappointment and dejection that has characterised these last few years.
Architecturally and environmentally speaking, Dens Park’s south enclosure and its surroundings, aka The Derry, is the ground’s most profoundly embarrassing airt.
The north stand is showing its considerable age. We’ve known how to make stands without pillars for some time now.
But as it houses the dressing rooms, offices, boardroom, hospitality, shop, etc it can stay. For now.
So the Dens Park Survival Strategy proceeds as follows:
1 – Buy back the ground. Why did this not happen years ago?
2 – Knock down the south side, then begin the process of turning Dens the other way round. I don’t mean move the pitch. I mean redevelop the south side of the ground to do the job the north side currently does. This allows the club to build state-of-the-art facilities for players, staff and guests within a new stand while the old facilities still remain in use, and without having to ground-share. Football can still be played at Dens in front of three stands.
3 – Once the south side is redeveloped knock down the north stand and replace it with a pillars-free new stand.
4 – Take the opportunity to improve the whole environment of the ground for the benefit of everyone who uses it. And everyone who lives near it and has to look at it every day. A concourse on Dens Road at the new front door of the club and a south stand of some elegance would transform the everyday aesthetics for the natives.
Dundee FC and Dens Park are why I never stopped dreaming
The advantages are many.
But the most significant of these is that the entire project would be devoted exclusively to the single ideal of enhancing the experience of playing and watching football.
I also rather like the idea of the club’s address moving to Dens Road. Not least because it underscores the importance of our place on the map of the city.
Dundee FC, Dens Park, Dens Road, Dundee – it’s got a certain rhythmic symmetry to it. You might almost cry it poetry.
And for many of us, staying put would spare us the discomfort of a crematorium on the doorstep, spare fans and players alike the endless taunts, jokes, songs and worse from rival fans.
It’s the songs I worry about most. The United fans would have their own, and I wouldn’t blame them.
When Bill Shankly said football is not a matter of life and death – it’s much more important than that, his tongue may well have been in his cheek, but there is a grain of truth there too.
Because if you ever saw his brother Bob’s Dundee side reinvent the world through the prism of the Provie Road end, you never stop dreaming. You dare not stop dreaming.
