Derek Dougan

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Scroll down to read The Football Club' By Derek Dougan


Derek Dougan at Wolves 1970-71
Picture from
Derek Dougan's Book of Soccer No. 1
Pelham Books 1971, p 6

Alexander Derek Dougan

Born: Belfast , 20 January, 1938. Died 24 June 2007.

League Appearences

(*Seasons: 57 = 1957-58 season)


League Appearances for Other Teams**

Northern Ireland Appearences**

'The Football Club'
By Derek Dougan

From: Derek Dougan's Book of Soccer No. 1
Pelham Books 1971, pp 9-12

People are always asking me which is the best club I have played for - and wherever the question is asked it is with the hope that I will name the club the inquirer supports. It was easy to answer when I was at Portsmouth, as that was my first English league club. Not so easy after six clubs, though having come to rest at Molineux longer than with any of the other five ciubs is often taken as self-evident proof that theanswer must be Wolves.

There is no straight-forward answer as all the clubs I have known have particular qualities and merits, even though at the time I may have found them outweighed by certain disadvantages that kept me on the move!

What is the 'best' club? It is possible to give only a qualified answer. For me the best club is the one at which I have been able to express myself properly, with the right amount of freedom attached to the requirements of teamwork.

In flights of fancy I work out teams consisting of players from the clubs for which I have signed, assured in my imagination that it would take the nation by storm, winning every coveted honour, including the European Cup. With a substitute it would be Dougan's Dozen - and let no one say 'Dirty Dozen' as in the film title!

It may seem over-romantic, but when I arrived at Wolves I found a whole town in the throes of romantic nostalgia. They were - and still are - talking about those grand old days, in the fifties, when Wolves were the scourge of Europe and doing what even the England team could not do against European opposition.

I felt that every time someone mentioned the names of Johnny Hancocks, Jimmy Mullen, Jesse Pye and William Ambrose Wright, they were about to raise their hats or bow their heads. These and other names have been revered since those illustrious days. I came to realize how much sentiment means to clubs and supporters. It would be gratifying if, in ten to fifteen years' time, people remember me with such sentimental respect.

When I am talking to supporters and they drift into a reminiscent mood, reliving in their minds the excitement and tension of Wolves v. Spartak or Real Madrid, I am at a disadvantage. I was still a youngster in Belfast, looking towards Glentoran and Distillery and wondering if I would make the grade as a professional, when those Molineux specials were fought and won. Yet these supporters, with almost total recall about incidents in the games, describe them as though they had just been played. Amazing how a memorable match stays fresh in the mind a soccer generation later.

At Portsmouth I was a gangling lad of seventeen when the Molineux supermen were in action. I wish I could have seen them, at their peak, but I have my memories too and they remain equally vivid.

Derek Dougan

No. 318
in FKS World of Soccer Stars album

(Picture from Nigel Mercer's site at
http://cards.littleoak.com.au)

Wolves specialized in the fifties in fast-raiding wingers - and it is a winger I remember with admiration at Portsmouth, Peter Harris, who won a few caps with England. At club level he is the fastest winger I have known. They say Billy Elliott, of West Bromwich, who died a few years ago, was among the fastest wingers in the game and that he went down the wing as though trying to outpace the speed of light. To latch on to the analogy. Peter Harris came up the wing like the dawn, illuminating a game with his runs and bursts of speed.

In those days at Portsmouth supporters reminisced about Duggie Reed, Jimmy Scoular, Jack Froggatt...The club had known its moments of glory, winning the First Division championship two years in succession.What is it that makes some players so well remembered and others, with similar talent, quickly forgotten ? I think that the answer is - winning something!

The Wolves players whose names are still mentioned with pride in the town were associated with dramatic achievements. I played with some fine players at Blackburn, Villa, Peterborough and Leicester, but I doubt if their names will survive with the same kind of lustre because we did not win anything. We had our moments - Blackburn in the Cup Final against Wolves, Peterborough knocking Arsenal out of the FA Cup competition - but there were no trophies to hug for the photographers and raise from the tops of open coaches.

Generally, you have to be in a side that wins an important title to be sure of an honoured place in posterity.
Possibly, for some months, Leicester City had the best club side in my experience. There was so much potential that the side ought to have achieved greatness. Strangely, the potential was not realized or not fully understood and it slipped away. After that the City's slide into Division Two was inevitable - the penalty for not having consolidated a side capable of high challenge. It was a case of being so -near - and yet...

Gathering together some of the players I have known in my six clubs to form my own special team would be difficult, as it would have to re-assemble, numerically, a rugger side. But pressed to field eleven stout men and true it would come out like this: Gordon Banks (Leicester), Peter Rodriques (Leicester), Derek Parkin (Wolves), Bobby Roberts (Leicester), John Holsgrove (Wolves), Graham Cross (Leicester), Bryan Douglas (Blackburn), Peter Dobing (Blackburn), Derek Dougan (well, I can't leave myself out, can I?), Roy Vernon (Blackburn) and David Wagstaffe (Wolves).

David Gibson (Leicester) gets in by virtue of his ball-playing virtuosity, marvellous to play alongside, and the substitute rule. These, of course, were their clubs when I was playing with them.

I suppose it is a case of 'to each his own'. No one will agree with someone else who the best players were of a particular period and club. At Leicester there were supporters who said that though Graham Cross was a superlative half-back, there would never be another Sep Smith, who 'fathered' Don Revie's football career in the war years. They admired David Gibson's artistry, but some said there would never be another Jimmy Hernon.

So it was when I came to Wolves. Old favourites, times dearly remembered; the new boys would have to bide their time and prove themselves, enjoying the same respect only in the fullness of time.

But it is easy to sneer and say there is no point in getting sentimental over the past. After all, the game's the thing - not honours inscribed on shields and trophies behind locked glass doors. But it is sentiment that gives soccer some of its mystique and that makes supporters emotionally involved in the game.

Derek compared a 45 minute weekly show on Radio Birmingham
called 'Weekend Tomorrow'

It covered sport, gardening, motoring and restaurants,
and went out on Friday 6.15pm on 96.5m VHF

Picture: Ron Viner (Daily Express)
From Wolves v West Bromwhich Albion programme
7 November 1970. Vol. 3 No. 10.

It is reassuring to know that there is a chance in this fleeting occupation of a kind of immortality. I don't think it is
vain to hope that one will be remembered with affection, though it would be crass conceit to expect such recognition without doing much to deserve it. The trouble is that you can play your heart out and still not have anything to show for it, nothing tangible, that is.

The consolation here is that the best team does not always win. Quirks of fate, chance and tricks of circumstance can decide a match more than the respective talents of the teams involved. This is what makes soccer so unpredictable and often exciting. Another popular question I am asked is: 'What's the most exciting match you have played in ?'

There are two. One was the FA Cup third round match with Peterborough against Arsenal and the other my Molineux debut against Hull.

At Peterborough, Arsenal took the lead, I managed to equalise and when a replay seemed likely, we scored to send Billy Wright's team out of the competition. I shall always remember his dejected reply when the club doctor asked him if there were any injuries. He said: 'No, just eleven broken hearts'.

The match against Hull was the stuff that boys' dreams are made of. I had been brought from Leicester by Ronnie Allen to Wolves to score goals and help get the club back into the First Division. The match was being tele-recorded. What better then, in my first appearance before the home crowd, to score a hat-trick ? These two games will have pride of place in my scrapbook of memories.

If, when I am in my dotage, I am sitting before a television set and David Coleman or Brian Moore (surely they will go on forever!) introduce clips from that match against Hull I shall probably look back on my finest hour.

Most of my time being spent in the Midlands, I have tried in recent years to account for shifting fortunes among clubs in the region and wondered how many players will rank in memory with those I have mentioned.

Traditionally, the industrial Midlands have been second only to the North-East in producing footballers. Now, it seems, a majority come from outside the region. There was a time when the Wolves team was homebred - way back in 1908. Phil Parkes, born at West Bromwich, was the only local player in the side last season.

Some great players have come from the Midlands -Billy Wright, Bert Williams, Duncan Edwards, Jesse Pennington (West Bromwich and England), Harry Hibbs, from Tamworth and, no I hadn't forgotten, Stan Matthews.

They helped to give Midlands soccer a special aura and set standards that have become embedded in the scene. To each his own club was the best - and it is through pride in club that great players demonstrate their greatness. The fortunes of clubs often go in cycles and I anticipate great days ahead for Midlands soccer, making supporters in the eighties nostalgic about the seventies and recalling momentous games.



Other Links of this site include...

See Obituary

Where are they now ? See Pringle and Fissler.

Derek was a part of the ITV commentary team for Mexico 1970

Where was Derek born ? See Email November 2002

Books

On other sites see ...

Click to see Derek Dougan Tribute at :

Nigel Mercer's Galleries of English Football Cards 1965-75

Derek's Wikipedia entry is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Dougan

A season by season breakdown and some more links can be found at www.wolves.stats.btinternet.co.uk

There's a brief profile and some great pics at dougan

There's further profiles and pictures at:

www.sporting-heroes.net

www.rivals.net

There is a touching tribute at:

http://www.youtube.com

Also see http://www.youtube.com

Birth information and English League career statistics from:
"The PFA Premier and Football League Players' Records 1946-2005"
Edited and compiled by Barry J. Hugman. Lennard Queen Anne Press, 2005.
Visit Since 1888... The Searchable Premiership and Football League Player Database

**Additional club information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Dougan