My April 15 tale of Dundee’s woe as Aberdeen hammered them 7-0 at Dens in March brought a comment on Facebook from Steve Long.
He simply offered: “You couldn’t have been at the Rangers game at Dens Park in 2000.
“It was 6-1 to Rangers at half-time and the place was empty!”
Indeed, other duties dictated me not being at that match and, really, I’m probably glad I was elsewhere.
Dundee eventually heavily lost the game 7-1.
Dundee lined up that day (February 27) — Douglas; Smith, Wilkie, Tweed, Miller; Van Eijs (Boyack), Rae, Robertson, Sharp; Gray, Falconer.
Central defender Steven Tweed actually scored at both ends in that match.
He netted with a header to bring the home team back into game after they went 2-0 down.
Rod Wallace got a hat-trick for Rangers, whose others scorers were Tony Vidmar, Jorg Albertz and Sebastian Rozental, in addition to Tweed’s own goal.
Rangers team was — Klos; Numan, Wilson, Vidmar, Van Bronckhorst, Albertz, Reyna, Kanchelskis, Kerimoglu, Wallace, Rozental.
Notably, current Dundee manager Neil McCann was a substitute for Rangers that day.
The Ibrox side were to go on and steamroller their way to their 49th league title that season, finishing a massive 21 points ahead of Celtic.
And there was to be no respite for the Dens Parkers just a couple of days later on March 1 when their midweek sojourn to take on Celtic ended in a 6-2 defeat.
The Dee lined up at Parkhead — Douglas; Raeside, Wilkie, Tweed, Van Eijs (Maddison); Boyack, Rae, Robertson, Sharp; Grady, Annand (Bayne).
Celtic — Kharine; McNamara, Mahe (Rafael), Mjallby, Stubbs, Boyd; Petrov, Wieghorst, Moravcik (Berkovic); Viduka, Johnson (Burchill).
Celtic raced to a 5-0 half-time lead with goals by Johnson (2), Viduka (2, 1 pen) and Petrov.
Although Robertson pulled one back, Johnston netted again to compete his hat-trick.
Grady netted another for Dundee with 13 minutes remaining.
*GEORGE Jardine, of Menzieshill, Dundee, asked if Dundee’s legendary right-back Alex Hamilton ever scored for Scotland.
Goals are very rare in Hammy’s portfolio and he never scored for the full Scotland team, while netting just one for the Dens Park side.
However, he did notch for the Scottish League in their 11-0 hammering of the League of Ireland on November 28, 1962.
There’s a much better story regarding this match.
Stewart Fraser, a left-half, with Dundee United, also played in the game and netted a hat-trick, which was very unusual for a wing-back in those days.
Celtic’s Johnny Divers also hit a treble, with Charlie Cooke notching a double.
There was a single from Willie Allan, while Pat Crerand converted a penalty-kick.
Scotland’s team was — Herriot (Dunfermline); Hamilton (Dundee), Kennedy (Celtic); Crerand (Celtic), Ure (Dundee), Fraser (Dundee United); Chalmers (Celtic), Allan (Aberdeen), Divers (Celtic), Cooke (Aberdeen), McParland (Partick Thistle).
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.