Coll Donaldson was on the verge of quitting football after his Dundee United misery at “toxic” Tannadice.
The Inverness Caley Thistle defender has revealed he almost called time on his career following a hugely frustrating spell at United.
And Donaldson’s experience of playing against his old team last weekend has shown to him that the relationship between Tangerines players and fans hasn’t got any better since he left Tayside.
Now, as he prepares for an IRN-BRU cup final meeting with Dumbarton in Perth today, Donaldson insists Caley Jags have helped him fall in love with the beautiful game again.
He said: “Coming here has been a breath of fresh air because I am enjoying my football again.
“I was at the point where I didn’t know whether I wanted to play football before I left Dundee United.
“It was quite severe, I wasn’t enjoying it and there was no fun left in the game for me.
“I didn’t like going into work every day because I was unhappy.
“I wasn’t playing, I was working all week but there wasn’t anything at the end of it and it was pretty tough.
“No matter how well I played I never got a chance, although to be fair the other two boys were doing well.
“My relationship with the fans at United also went downhill and when I spoke to the manager he told me he was keeping me out of the team to protect me a bit.
“When someone was injured he would look at me and think ‘what if it goes wrong’ because then things would become worse.
“So from that point of view, I was totally at a loss because I had a manager who said he believed in me but I was so low in confidence and so low in self-esteem that he couldn’t trust me.”
The unrest at Tannadice was palpable and Donaldson was not the only player to feel the brunt. Win or lose, he bore the brunt of the fans’ ire and he was not alone.
He said: “At the start I just brushed aside the abuse I was getting, I was playing in the team and was able to ignore the stick from the fans.
“I’m not naive enough to think that people would love you and wouldn’t doubt you in football, but I was able to get through it when I was playing.
“There was one day I made a mistake to lose the opening goal but we came back to win 2-1 and the fans still gave me abuse for it.
“We had won the game but they still wanted to hammer me.
“It wasn’t just me, it’s toxic there.
“I saw it last weekend when we played them, they started the better of the teams but we got a corner after 15 minutes and they were all booing them.
“For us winning a corner, they started hammering their own players.
“I don’t envy any of the Dundee United players playing there because they are under massive pressure every week. It is quite a toxic atmosphere at that club.
“Even when you leave it’s the same, I am still pals with Robbie Muirhead who is down in England with MK Dons now and has done well for them.
“He still gets people tweeting him and giving him abuse for his time at Dundee United even though it was two years ago now.”
