Fury at Dens as 13 are laid off on a day of 'disgrace'

• Administrator Bryan Jackson at Dens Park yesterday, where he painted a brutally realistic picture of the club's chances of emerging from administration for the second time in seven years Picture: SNS

Among 13 redundancies, club manager Gordon Chisholm and his assistant Billy Dodds were laid off, along with nine of the first-team squad. The club's chances of surviving are rated at no more than 50-50.

"We've had bad times for years," complained one Liverpool supporter when he was interviewed on television yesterday. But there are bad times and there are bad times. Surprisingly, there are links between Dundee and Liverpool, including the time the teams - then managed by brothers Bob and Bill Shankly - met to officially inaugurate the Dens Park floodlights in 1960. But, warned the newly appointed administrator Bryan Jackson of accountants PKF, it could be lights out time for Dundee in just a month if a sufficient level of new investment has not been sourced, something which puts the club in a completely different world of peril to Liverpool.

"If we are going to come to an arrangement with creditors to come out of administration, if I have not concluded receiving a fair amount of a lump sum or a commitment within four weeks then it is difficult to see a way forward," he said bleakly yesterday. "You are then going to need the next four to six weeks to try and conclude the transaction."

Dundee in administration

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• Fraser Wishart fears for axed players but says some help is at hand

• Colin McMenamin rages at Bob Brannan and Calum Melville for 'playing with people's lives'

Jackson had already projected that the cash flows at the club - who only have four more home games left this year - should be enough to keep Dundee going until Christmas, but guarantees of investment are needed long before then.

"I believe we can generate sufficient income to trade until Christmas, but I need assurances that money is coming in and I will be in a situation to make an offer (to creditors] before Christmas," he added. "But it won't go beyond Christmas."

Jackson made this assertion having completed the job of making 13 people redundant, nine of whom are members of the current playing squad. It leaves Dundee with a group of just 13 first-team players, including goalkeeper Robert Douglas and left-back Matt Lockwood.This more senior pair have been asked to help out Barry Smith, who was released from his playing contract with Brechin City last night, in an interim management team.

On-loan Milan Misun has returned to Celtic but though Jamie Adams and David Wittenveen have indicated their desire to play on for Dundee, it is up to their clubs - St Johnstone and Hearts respectively - whether they are happy to pay all their wages. The shortfall in players to make up the squad for today's match at Stirling Albion will be made-up from the youth team.

Even the physio, Karen Gibson, was dismissed but later reinstated when Jackson was told that under Scottish Football League rules the club must operate with medical back-up.

Perhaps in a bid to put a more positive spin on things, the administrator released a statement revealing all those players who were being retained. It meant there was no list published of axed members of the playing staff, as happened in 2003. Back then the local evening paper described it as the "saddest team-sheet in the club's history". But yesterday was lent a yet more solemn tone, despite the huge difference in figures involved.

Seven years ago the debt owed by Dundee, then in the Scottish Premier League, was revealed to be 23 million, but this time around the club have been placed back on the brink for a matter of 2 million, of which 420,000 - a higher figure than previously reported - is owed to HMRC. In addition, there is a large "contingent debt", as much as 500,000, owed to all the employees released yesterday, a group which also included the high-profile management team of Chisholm and Dodds.

Chisholm, who left Dens as a player in 1992 after a row about bonus payments, was understandably livid about being pushed out again, particularly having been lured from a comfortable position at Queen of the South in March.

"Someone has got to be answerable for what has happened here today," said Chisholm. "It's an absolute disgrace.

"It's a sad, sad day. The atmosphere and the emotion in there is horrendous. A lot of people are really suffering. All the girls are crying. There was talk of a wage cut but the administrator said he would not embarrass me by going there. Things are tight and it was a case of 'thanks very much, but that's the end'.

"There is anger in there at the moment. There is shock, disappointment, most of all anger at the way this has developed. Everyone will make their own decision on who is to blame. I feel badly let down. Billy left a stable job and so did I. But this is not the time to go into this."

Dodds, who made 163 appearances for Dundee between 1989 and 1993, described it as "the lowest point in my career, as a player, coach and assistant manager". He added: "February and March were knife-edge (times] finance-wise. I don't need to say anything more beyond the fact that we didn't come until March.So they knew what state the club were in before we came here."

A large proportion of the non-HMRC debt is owed to those Jackson described as "friendly creditors", including former chairman Bob Brannan, who resigned from the board on Thursday night, and Calum Melville.

The part played by Melville in Dundee's downfall continued to be a matter for debate yesterday. Jackson refused to confirm whether an injection of 50,000, reported to have been made yesterday and designed to help cover the cost of administration, had come from Melville, the Aberdonian whose promise of investment up until next season is recorded in the club's most recent set of accounts but who has faced his own financial and personal difficulties of late.

"I cannot clarify that because the situation needs to remain confidential," said Jackson. "People who have given us support have asked for that to be the case."

Jackson, who oversaw Motherwell's successful emergence from administration in 2002, described Dundee's situation as more critical, "partly because the stadium is not owned by the club and partly because it is a harsher economic climate than eight years ago". He also accepted there is only a certain amount of times the club can keep going back to the same set of fans to bail them out.

There were so many reasons to look back yesterday, with the press conference having been held in the Billy Steel lounge at Dens Park, as it was in 2003 when then administrator Tom Burton fielded questions at the beginning of Dundee's first spell of administration. He said Dundee needed a "fair wind and a dollop of fortune" to survive, and they did, only to throw this second chance away. Jackson was less poetic in his assessment yesterday. Asked point-blank what Dundee's chances of survival were, he said: "50-50".

Billy Steel, of course, was the player Dundee purchased 60 years ago for 23,500, breaking the Scottish transfer record. But it's possible to pin-point more recent examples of largesse.

It was wounding to reflect that the day before yesterday's sad events at Dens had been the tenth anniversary of Claudio Caniggia's debut for the club, on the same afternoon as Jim McLean assaulted BBC reporter John Barnes during an interview following Dundee United's 4-0 defeat at home by Hearts. It had been interpreted by some as further evidence of the establishment of a new order, or at least an old one being restored. Anyone who still thought it had been worth it should have been at Dens Park yesterday. True, the oldest club in the city was back in the spotlight, but not for the reasons wished for.

MANAGEMENT

Gordon Chisholm, manager

Billy Dodds, assistant manager

John Holt, youth coach

Neil Cosgrove, kit man

PLAYERS

Eric Paton

Scott Fox

Brian Kerr

Njazi Kuqi

Paul McHale

Charlie Grant

Colin McMenamin

Dominic Shimmin

Mickael Antoine-Curier