Dark days again at Dundee, but this time sympathy is in short supply

Published on Monday 27 September 2010 18:46

FOR Dundee fans, it is a perfect storm. In the year rivals Dundee United lifted the Scottish Cup their own club's existence has once again been thrown into doubt, and in frankly more dismaying circumstances than seven years ago.

Somehow lessons have not been learned since the club's first lurch into administration. Somehow Dundee have allowed themselves to be sucked back into a world of bad debts and cavalier gambling. Somehow the fans have been fooled again.

The plea heard from a Dens Park boardroom that has been varnished a few times over with hubris is that the club have been victimised. At least, this was the tone of benefactor Calum Melville's explanation in the News of the World on Sunday, when the Aberdonian broke cover after weeks of speculation about his own business affairs.

"Perhaps by spending money last year and being higher profile than some of our rivals, it's been easier for us to be singled out," he said, with reference to the huge tax bill currently doubling as a death warrant for Dundee. But everyone has to pay tax, so there is no use bleating about it being unfair, or regretting the less than circumspect use of funds last season. "Looking back, perhaps last year we were over-ambitious and did not spend the money as wisely as we could have," he admitted. These are words which could have come from the mouth of former owner Peter Marr, and the same sentiment did - in 2003.

Even the decision to relay this message via a tabloid newspaper was one in a long list of many which can be argued have been slaps in the face of Dundee supporters, who just the previous afternoon had turned up in their usual good numbers to watch the side fall to Cowdenbeath. They might have expected this view from the inside to have been given to the club's official website rather than to a newspaper published in the hours after a new low.

The club's own official website did not mince its words when describing the defeat a day earlier as a "car crash performance". But on-field matters have again been relegated to a side-show issue. A burst ball in the second-half of Saturday's game was a grim portent of what was to come for a club struggling to command the goodwill of anyone at the moment. This, perhaps, is the most marked difference to seven years ago when supporters, but not only supporters, rallied to save Dundee. Many were prepared to rattle tins and shake buckets and turn up in healthy numbers at Dens Park, responding to the challenge from the administrator, Tom Burton, to add at least an extra 1000 to the crowds.

But will there be such a well of support this time around? Even the club's own fans are rightly dismissing any attempt to portray the club as harshly treated by HM Revenue & Customs, which has issued a final demand for payment believed to be in the region of 350,000.It is a sum accumulated during a period when Dundee returned to the transfer market with notable alacrity. Last summer only Celtic were bigger spenders.

In March, Dundee sacked manager Jocky Scott and replaced him with Gordon Chisholm. This change of horses in mid-stream came at great expense, with the bill for Scott's removal, over a year before the end of his contract, likely to be added to the one printed on the HMRC headed note paper in chief executive Harry MacLean's in-tray.

Yesterday, in a short statement published on the official website, "on-going patience" was requested. However, there was not much of this detected among supporters preparing to march on Dens Park tonight in a cloud of fury. A Dundee FC Supporters' Society Ltd meeting, the umbrella group formed earlier this month, have called a meeting for this evening at the club's stadium, with directors invited to attend.

Should any accept, it is likely to prove a lions' den. Jim Duffy, the manager when Dundee last went into administration, swam with sharks at Deep Sea World to raise funds. Will Chisholm, who was lunged at by a fan as he walked up the tunnel on Saturday, be prepared to put anything on the line for a club which lured him from a comfortable position at Queen of the South with what it now appears were empty promises?

Few at the moment are feeling very generous towards Dundee, not even supporters as loyal as any in the land.