Dens Park

“Once the new Executive get into their quarters at Dens Road the great winter pastime will become more popular than it ever has been, and that the collapse of the Dundee Football Athletic Company Ltd may after all prove to have been but a blessing in disguise”. Evening Telegraph 29th April 1899

On 19th August 1899 Dundee opened their new ground on Dens Road with a friendly match against Edinburgh’s St Bernard’s. The game ended in a 1-1 draw, but the result never really mattered. The previous season the club faced extinction, and thanks to the goodwill of the League Dundee was able to keep all of its registrations which allowed it to continue as a football club. 

The Dundee committee worked tirelessly to secure players and funding when they were then hit with another blow when they were told that the use of Carolina Port was no longer possible. The Harbour Trustees wanted a change of use for the site. This could have been fatal for the committee’s endeavours to resuscitate the club but for a fortuitous walk along Dens Road taken by three people connected with the Executive of the club. They realised that a piece of waste ground, surrounded by industrial buildings, would not be an attractive proposition to ordinary tenants. The club grabbed the opportunity and secured a ten-year lease on the ground at a rental of £120. The cash strapped club helped fund the construction by raising £600 from hosting a bazaar at Kinnaird Hall.

The Evening Telegraph’s appraisal of the Dens Park site turned out to be prophetic – the building of the new ground turned out to be a dawning of a glorious new era for the club, and city.

Fortress Dens

“Saturday’s victory for Rangers is their first at Dens Park for three seasons; and it constituted Dundee’s first defeat at home in two seasons” Scottish Referee, Mon 10 April 1911.

The first decade of the twentieth century was one of the best for the Dark Blues – and the imperious form that the new ground provided for was a huge factor in this success. While the Scottish League and Scottish Cup became the main focus for the club, Dundee still took part in the local competitions, quite often using these tournaments to give game time to their reserves. Between their first game at Dens in 1899 to the Scottish Cup win in 1910 Dundee, and their reserves, brought home twenty five trophies. 

The local and inter county honours were well received, but the true measure of where Dundee stood in the pantheon of Scotland’s clubs was the two national competitions. As well as the haul of minor trophies secured in 1902-03, the Dark Blues also finished runners-up to Hibs in the league and were edged out of the Scottish Cup semi-final by a strong Hearts side. Dundee were again runners-up, this time to Celtic, in 1906-07. Two years later Dundee came closer than ever, ending up just the solitary point behind Celtic. The disappointment in the league was forgotten the next season when Dundee, unbeaten at home in both national competitions, won the Scottish Cup. 

The defeat to Rangers at Dens on 8th April 1911, a little over a month after the Govan side were knocked out of the Cup at the same venue on Dundee’s way to another Cup semi-final, came over two years after the last home defeat to Morton, in Feb 1909.

The International Scene

The city was sent into a football fervour when Carolina Port held the Scotland-Wales international in 1896. To the bitter disappointment of the SFA’s Forfarshire representative and the Dundee football mad public, “The ‘Port” was passed over in future years and never saw international match again. The new ground, however, hosted two in its first 9 years and three in total – in 1904, 1908 and 1936 – all against Wales. 

The People’s Ground

 Quite unlike any Dundee sports venue before or since, Dens Park has captured the imagination of the city’s inhabitants. Whether it is watching club and international football; greyhound racing; basketball; baseball; charity and benefit games or other events, the city’s public have flocked to the old ground to show their support. 

The period just before or during the Great War provided for a few interesting events. In 1913 there were some frivolities in the form of basketball and annual matches between farmers and merchants. As war broke and ground on, Dens saw a number of benefit and charity matches to raise funds for soldiers on the front or soldiers who were injured. Harry Lauder brought some light relief before one match in particular by giving the spectators a skirl on the bagpipes. 

In September 1918 America’s favourite pastime came to Dens and 8,000 enthusiastic locals turned out to watch the ‘Western States’ defeat the ‘Eastern States’ by 10 to 3. The Courier’s commentary betrayed the fervour created by the demonstration and later surmised that the game of cricket is in danger of being usurped by the much faster game of baseball:

“The brilliant fielding at Dens Park made run-getting a very hard job. The ball was returned with amazing dexterity and judgement of distance, and travelled through the air with lightning speed. In the art of throwing a ball such skill as the Americans displayed at Dens Park has never before been seen in Dundee. ‘They’ll mak grand bombthrowers’, said a spectator, reflecting on the fact that the players belong to the great army which America is sending over to help put the finishing touch on the Huns…”

Juniors

The junior football scene often utilised the facilities on offer at Dens. In 1922 Scotland entertained Wales in a junior international with 9,000 Dundonians turning out to see the home side win 2-1. Appetites duly whetted, a year later 15,000 turned out to see the Scots beat Ireland 4-0. Despite these bumper crowds which compared favourably with the attendances these fixtures normally commanded, it wasn’t until 1930 when the internationals returned to Dundee. In 1934 England were defeated 3-0 with Conwell of Arthurlie grabbing all three goals, delighting the 11,000 in attendance. The internationals returned sporadically, with what looks like the last junior international held at Dens being a 4-1 win against Republic of Ireland in 1954. Lochee Harp’s Cochrane, signed off Dens’s tenure as a host venue with a goal. It appears to be the last junior international held in the city until Thomson Park, Lochee hosted the SJFA centenary match against the Republic in 1986. 

The junior clubs were no strangers to the ground either and they attracted crowds that their own grounds would not be able to comfortably accommodate. Dundee Violet’s Junior Cup clash with Boness United in 1947 attracted 20,000 while Lochee United’s 6th Round Cup game in 1959-60 drew 15,000. 

A Great Scottish Arena

At its peak, the capacity of the stadium was quoted as anywhere between 45,000 – 50,000 – and it was certainly needed. Indeed, in his notes for the Evening Telegraph souvenir programme for the Dundee v AC Milan European Cup semi-final, the Dundee chairman bemoaned the capacity restrictions:

“It is a very expensive business for Scottish clubs to compete on the continent against clubs with resources based on gates of sixty to seventy thousand supporters at much higher prices, as we do not participate in the away gate but are dependent on our home support which in the case of Dundee is limited to a maximum gate of 40,000”.

Even by the 1960’s Dundee wouldn’t threaten that capacity that often, but not so in the late forties and early fifties. Dundee’s record, official, crowd set in the 1950’s was a little over 43,000 against Rangers in the Scottish Cup. Given the rather lax, by modern standards, health and safety who knows how many have actually managed to unofficially wangle their way into the ground to see a match. It was in the immediate post war years when Dundee set their record average attendance of 24,500. 

Dundee’s city rivals might not have seen more than 30,000 pass the turnstiles of their own stadium, but two Scottish Cup ties held at Dens catered for the large crowds which Tannadice could not. In 1951 a Dundee derby saw 38,000 turn out to witness a 2-2 draw. In 1967, Dens was used as a neutral venue for the cup semi-final between Aberdeen and United. 41,500 squeezed into the now ageing stands and terraces. 

Capacity Gains & Growing Pains 

The Dens Park of 1899 is unrecognisable to the Dens Park of today, or 1950, or 1925 even. The ground has undergone a number of developments and facelifts to accommodate the increasing crowds as football took hold of the city’s consciousness in the opening decades of the 20th century.

The early iterations of the ground’s stands and buildings were often ramshackle affairs and so weren’t the most robust structures. 

This was no more evident than in November 1912 when a great storm tore through the city, shattering the glass of the East Station and destroying some of the wooden hoardings at Dens on Sandeman Street. 

In December 1921 the old south stand was destroyed by fire which hastened the planned ground improvements which, unsurprisingly, fanned the flames of various conspiracies on the cause of the fire.

The development of the opposite stand months before managed to catch the imagination of fans more than any other, and is now a city landmark in its own right. In 1921 work completed on the club’s Main Stand. Designed by the famous architect, Archibald Leitch, the stand was a significant statement of intent by the club and confirmed  Dundee’s status as one of Scotland’s premier clubs.

This ambitious construction project was not without danger and in Aug 1921 a sheeter by the name of Edward Tanner had a lucky escape when he lost his footing and the asbestos sheet broke underneath him. The Dens Road inhabitant fell a full 45-50 feet, but miraculously only suffered bruising and lacerations to his right arm. 

In addition to the erection of the large stand, there were improvements made to the banking around the ground’s footprint. The local press considered that the improvements meant that around 50,000 people could now be accommodated. 

Decline

By the 1970s a combination of factors – end of the post war boom in attendances; wider economic uncertainty; ageing football grounds creaking under the pressure of continued use and more awareness of health and safety meant the halcyon days of attendances was coming to an end. 

In 1974 Dens Park, already becoming a relic of a bygone age of football, provided for one last unforgettable game in front of a huge crowd. Dundee and Hibs, two of Scotland’s ‘Big Six’ of the early to mid-70s, justified their inclusion in this elite club. After a thrilling 3-3 draw in the quarter final of the Scottish Cup at Easter Road in front of 28,000 the two sides met in the replay at Dens. It proved to be the stadium’s last 30,000+ crowd. 30,888 squeezed in with many more locked out. The home fans were not disappointed as Dundee swept to a 3-0 victory. It is a match that is still recalled with misty eyed wonderment by those fortunate enough to have been there. 

Title Celebrations & Relegations

Although the cup game in 1974 may have signalled the end of big crowd football games in the city, Dens still played host to some dramatic theatre. The 1979 League Cup Final replay and the all-Dundee 1980 League Cup final was hosted at the ground – making it the only non-Glasgow venue to have had such an honour. 

In 1980 a relegation bound Dundee demolished Celtic 5-1, all but ending the Hoops’ hopes of the league title. Three years later, Dundee United sealed their title on the last day of the season. Special dispensation meant that over 29,000 managed to witness that game despite the capacity being restricted to 25,000. In 1986, perhaps the most dramatic last day of the season in Scottish history played out at Dens when Albert Kidd struck to deny Hearts their own league title. 

There have been many other games that have since captured the imagination – the 1987 League Cup quarter final against United; the Coca-Cola cup games under the floodlights in the mid-90s; the nerve shredding promotion clinching game against Dumbarton in 2014 and, of course, the ‘Beautiful Monday’ derby of May 2016 when Dundee fans laid some of the ghosts of May ’83 to rest, when a 2-1 win for the Dark Blues consigned United to relegation. 

Modern Day Dens

The last piece of major development of the stadium in 1999 was the construction of the two stands behind the goals. As a consequence the ground today bears little or no resemblance with the grand old arena capable of accommodating up 50,000 people. 

These stands behind the goal represent triumph over officious applications of stadium criteria. Raised in record time, the commitment to build these stands allowed passage into the SPL for a team which had just romped to the First Division league title in 1998. 

What stands today is a hybrid of contemporary stadium design and old, time-worn stands. It is simultaneously a monument to the ground’s storied past as a great Scottish arena and a glimpse of the ground’s potential as a modern, well-equipped stadium. The future of Dens is unclear, it may be that the club moves to its fourth stadium at Camperdown in the near future, or circumstances may dictate that the club has to stay put. It is a topic which bitterly divides fans. The move makes sound financial sense, but the club has spent the last 121 years of its 127 year history at the ground and the clinical economic arguments are sometimes no match for nostalgia – there is no Dundee fan alive who can recall watching home games at any other ground. The history of Dens Park is inextricably woven into the history of Dundee FC – it will take some teasing of these historical threads to separate the two. 

When the global pandemic meant no football was played at Dens for many months, the stands sat eerily empty, haunted by the anguished cries of fans during the bad times and the raucous celebrations of the better times. 

The stadium is once again open for business and whatever its future, you can be sure the old ground still has some plot twists it has yet to reveal in the story of Dundee FC.