Dundee 3 Rangers 2

Indeed, when I got an ankle injury which kept me out for some weeks, it would have been a disaster to me, but for one thing. It was Saturday, October 27 1951, and while we played YM Anchorage at University Park, Dundee was facing Rangers at Hampden in the League Cup final.

Someone on the touchline with a radio distracted us from our own game by calling out details of the final. Dundee had just equalised when this commentary began. Later Johnny Pattillo scored, and for a time there was the exciting prospect of a major trophy coming to Dundee at last. Two minutes from the end, however, came George Young's free kick equaliser, and those high hopes were dashed.

Then, unbelievably, in the last minute, Dundee made it. Billy Steel's free kick was tailor-made for Alf Boyd to head home.

It was strange listening to all this while going through the motions of playing a game ourselves. It was like a fairy tale at the end and indeed I might not have believed it had I not managed to get close enough to hear commentator Peter Thomson repeating the final score - Dundee 3 Rangers 2.

YM Anchorage had beaten us 8-2, but that didn't matter. Defeat was quite familiar to us, but Dundee winning a cup was something new - unless you were alive in 1910, which I wasn't. I hirpled off to the station and was among the crowd in South Union Street when the League Cup arrived that night. The players took turns of holding it aloft as the team bus crawled through packed streets. It was unforgettable.

The following year I managed to be at Hampden when Dundee beat Kilmarnock to retain the cup. That was thrilling, but nothing will ever surpass the excitement of that match I never saw in 1951!