Sir Bobby Charlton: Legend of the game's debut at 18 was at a Scottish football ground - and Manchester United lost 5-1.

Sir Bobby Charlton made his name starring for England and Manchester United all across the world but it is a little known fact that he took the first steps of a stellar football career in Dundee.

Bobby Charlton in his last appearance for Manchester United against Chelsea in April 1973. He made his first-team debut 17 years earlier at Dens Park v Dundee (Photo by Don Morley/Allsport/Getty Images)

The England football great, who has died aged 86, regularly competed at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, the pro-am golf tournament held at courses in Fife and Angus and his thoughts may well have strayed to the football ground nearby where he made his first-team debut.

As many of the obituaries published yesterday outlined, Charlton made his competitive first-team debut for Manchester United against Charlton Athletic in October 1956, scoring twice in a 4-2 victory at Old Trafford.

But he had already made his non-competitive first appearance several months earlier in a friendly at Dens Park, home of Dundee FC. Matt Busby brought his side to his homeland in April 1956 shortly after they had been confirmed as champions of England after a 2-1 win over Blackpool. Clearly a potent force, the English side still lost 5-1 to a Dundee side who were developing into the team that became Scottish Champions six years later and reached the European Cup semi-finals.

How The Scotsman reported Bobby Charlton's debut v Dundee the previous evening in its edition of 10 April 1956

As The Scotsman reports in a piece on the game in its 10 April edition, “Manchester United, the new English League football champions, went down heavily at Dens Park yesterday, but they were by no means at full strength.” Several players, including Duncan Edwards, had been left behind to prepare for England’s clash with Scotland at Hampden Park the following weekend, which ended in a 1-1 draw.

It would be another two years before Charlton made his international breakthrough, eventually winning 106 caps and helping drive his team to become World Cup winners in 1966.

But he caught the eye at Dens. “Best of United’s reserves was Charlton (18), a forward of whom much is expected,” noted The Scotsman. “He made a promising debut in the first team. Webster scored a consolation goal in the last minute. There were 12,000 spectators.”

Centre-forward George Merchant struck a hat-trick for the hosts, with Alan Cousin, who would go on to win a league title medal at Dens, and George O’Hara also scored as Dundee took a 5-0 lead.

Charlton always spoke warmly of Scottish football and he had been drawn to the game north of the Border even before this significant evening at Dens Park.

"While growing up in the North East (of England), the odds were that when you talked about going to a cup final you meant the one at Hampden not Wembley, unless Newcastle might be involved," he wrote in My England Years, the second volume of his autobiography published in 2008.

"It was too expensive to go to London as a neutral, even if you could get a ticket, and in Glasgow you were guaranteed the most extraordinary theatre."