The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Derby days delight
NEWS THAT Dundee FC have been elevated to Scottish football’s top division was welcomed in Perth yesterday.
St Johnstone fans said they were looking forward to renewing their acquaintance with the Dark Blues, with the fixture sure to draw sizeable crowds.
While the main derby for Dundee will be with city rivals Dundee United, Saints have a historic rivalry with the Dens Park side, which dates back to 1962, when the away side won the old Scottish First Division championship at Muirton Park, Perth.
Dundee won 3-0, the result relegating St Johnstone to the second division.
Yesterday, Saints fans said they were looking forward to locking horns with Dundee again, although many criticised the handling of the whole situation as “farcical”.
No one from St Johnstone FC was available for comment but it is understood the club favours Dundee joining the SPL.
John Kaylor, chairman of Jeanfield 208 Saints, said having Dundee back in the SPL would provide a welcome boost to the Perth club’s finances.
“I love Dundee being in the first division and the fact that we’ve been above them, but it’ll be better financially for St Johnstone to face them in the SPL,” he said.
“We’ll have the three derbies against them and, with them being a first division club coming up, it will be an easy nine points.”
He continued: “It’s good for St Johnstone and we should get good crowds but I can’t believe the way it has been dealt with — it’s been farcical.
“We have known the scenario for a while so the SPL should have told Dundee and Dunfermline about this weeks ago.”
Saints fans were quick to post messages on supporters’ forums following the announcement.
On We Are Perth, “Slambrother” wrote; “Great news. Hopefully the crowds from these games will go some way to off-setting some of the financial loss from the club formerly known as Rangers, as well as generating some atmosphere and providing a day out.”
“Edstar101” wrote, “The good thing about this is that we get to play them (Dundee) again, which, as others have said should produce decent gates.”
DUNDEE FC chief executive Scot Gardiner last night revealed how the club came within 35 minutes of making a huge blunder that could have scuppered their SPL dream.
As the news that the Dark Blues will be in Scottish football’s top flight for the new season began to sink in at Dens Park, Gardiner recalled a dramatic last-gasp dash to Hampden Park to deliver the papers saying they were ready to be considered for promotion back on March 31.
The hero of the hour was a player now working as a fireman, striker Graham Bayne, who drove through to Glasgow to push the documentation through the letterbox personally.
Bayne made it by 4.25pm — just 35 minutes before close of business on the final day available to say that should Dundee become a candidate club then they fitted all the criteria demanded by the SPL.
Fast forward to yesterday and with the paperwork safely on file, the SPL finally contacted the Dark Blues to say they would be formally invited into the league in time for the start of the new season on August 4.
It cost Dundee approximately £5,000 to do so but with a dramatic promotion now theirs to savour that will turn out to be a fabulous investment.
“We got the application in at 4.25pm just before the SPL closed their doors,” said Gardiner.
“If we hadn’t got it in I really don’t know what would have happened.
“Dunfermline and Falkirk were also after the Club 12 position so it was imperative.
“It cost us less than £5,000 but that’s still a lot of money to our club.
“So we took an educated gamble and here we are today. It might turn out to be the best £5,000 we have ever spent.
“It was a really difficult week as we had to put in an application to join the SPL by March 31.
“I even asked the SPL if it was worth our while doing this because we were so many points behind Ross County in the First Division.
“Various people within the club were saying it was going to cost this amount of money and it specifically said in the application form that it was just in relation to being the candidate club and winning the league.”
Gardiner and the Dundee board have been handsomely rewarded for the dignified way they handled being in the midst of one of arguably the greatest storm to have hit Scottish footall.
They kept their own counsel while quietly planning for both eventualities — a move up to the top league or another year in the First Division.
“It is the news we were hoping for although it is not the way we were hoping to feature in the SPL,” he said.
“We wanted to go up as champions but since the situation unravelled with Rangers we wanted to make sure it was us taking the Club 12 position.
“We felt it was an open and shut case all along on the grounds of sporting merit but it has been intolerable at times.
“Now we can hopefully just concentrate on football from now on and get ready for the new SPL season.
“We have been working on all aspects of Plan A (Division One) and Plan B (SPL) with regards to signing targets.
“But we weren’t able to properly commit because we couldn’t risk signing anyone for the SPL if we weren’t going to get in there.”