This month saw the anniversary of the most incredible record-breaking fortnight in Dundee history.
77 years ago, the Dark Blues posted their biggest-ever victory – not just once but twice.
Back-to-back 10-0 wins is a feat that won’t be matched any time soon.
The scoreline remains the biggest win ever registered by Dundee Football Club, whether you pick the Alloa game or the subsequent Dunfermline one.
That wasn’t the only record set during that week of remarkable goalscoring back in 1947.
Albert Juliussen scored six goals in the first victory before going one better and notching seven against the Pars.
Thirteen goals scored by one player in two matches – that’s not going to be bettered, is it?
And, according to the match report of the day, it should have been more.
Juliussen’s seven-goal haul against Dunfermline stood as a club record for 15 years before the great Alan Gilzean matched it.
The club’s all-time record goalscorer knocked in seven against luckless Queen of the South in 1962, as the Dee won 10-2 at a foggy Palmerston Park.
Who was Juliussen?
Born in Blyth, Northumberland, in 1920, Juliussen was posted as an army instructor in Perth during the Second World War.
During that time he signed for Dundee United and scored 87 goals in 73 games before turning out for Aberdeen once. Dundee then snapped him up for £2,000 from Huddersfield, his pre-war club.
And the goals flew in. His total in dark blue was 52 in 46 matches post-war, include the 1945/46 season and that becomes 94 in 74.
In his time, Dundee won the Scottish Division B in the return to football after the war before finishing fourth in the 16-team Division A in 1947/48.
He would be sold to Portsmouth for £11,000 before moving to Everton. His time there, however, did not go well and he is remembered for being one of the club’s worst-ever signings.
Juliussen would return to United eventually and also turned out for Brechin City.
The matches
Dundee went into the Alloa clash having been beaten in both legs of a League Cup quarter-final by top flight Aberdeen.
The Wasps were firmly in mid-table and would finish fifth but they were taken apart at Recreation Park.
Goals were spread throughout the 90 – five in the first half, five in the second. Juliussen had three by the break with Ally Gunn and Peter Rattray also on target.
Reggie Smith and Ernie Ewen notched in the second half but it was Juliussen who stole the headlines.
Ewen and Rattray would find the net in the following game a fortnight later. But Juliussen would better his six-goal haul with a remarkable seven against Dunfermline.
And it should have been more – the Sunday Post seemingly focused more on missed chances than the 10 that actually went in, reporting: “Still, even if he missed five pinches [sitters], Albert shot three wonder goals. The rest were gifted to him by the most co-operative team in Scotland today.”
Top goal hauls
Gilzean matched the seven Juliussen managed in one game in 1962, equalling the club record.
Since then the closest anyone has come is John Duncan with five in an 8-2 thrashing of East Stirling at Firs Park in 1972.
Subsequently a number of players have scored four in one game – Duncan again in 1973, Jocky Scott, Billy Pirrie an incredible three times, Gordon Wallace and then Tommy Coyne in 1987.
The most recent pair to score four were Gerry Britton in 1994 and Neil McCann in 1995 against East Stirling.
Davie Brown bettered all of those over a century ago, scoring six against Raith Rovers in 1916 and five against Queen’s Park a year earlier.
But seven remains the bar to be beaten.
Will it ever be topped?
Conversation