Long Season Finally Over

Ian McCall.

Nearly relegated.

Cup Final.

CIS Semi Defeat.

UEFA Qualification.

Fiercest Rivals Down (pending appeal).

Bizarre and untimely own goals. The ball slipping through poor Paul Jarvie’s legs from the softest of headers. Beating Rangers at Ibrox 1-0 in a game they, in all honesty, should have won 4- or 5-1. Brebner’s last-minuter against Hearts. I got a stitch from jumping round the room when that went in (I was listening live online). The 4-1 mauling of Aberdeen in the cup – who were we that day? That’s one of the best performances I’d ever seen from a United side, a complete and professional demolition of a decent Aberdeen outfit.

It’s difficult to think back to early in the season, in fact I had to go and check results to just remind myself what had actually happened. Oh yes. More bizarreness. Kris Boyd knocking in 5 against us, equalling our own Paul Sturrock’s record of five in one SPL game.

And Ian McCall saying ‘I didn’t even know it was the same boy who scored them all’. Hmmmmmmmm!

Playing Billy Dodds in midfield was a big talking point, and has stopped since……

Ian McCall’s sacking!

Winning a derby was good. Especially after being pegged back – again!! And an important one too.

Nothing to do with us, though fascinating, was Septic’s surrendering of the SPL title in the last minutes of the last game of the season. That was another game I caught online. Hopefully one day we can again scale the dizzy heights of the top end of the SPL.

(My other online ‘bizarre nothing to do with us’ moment was listening to Dundee losing a very late equaliser to ICT towards the end of the season. I think United were playing the Sunday, so I tuned in to listen to Brewster’s XI take on Dundee. ICT flew at them, gave them a really good game, and netted an equaliser very late on. The three points would have all but guaranteed Dundee’s survival, and the silence at Dense was deafening. A real shock in a game that meant nowt to ICT, and fascinating radio, as was the Septic incident above for which even the commentators were speechless, for at least a minute, at Motherwell scoring those two goals.)

Biggest talking point had to be Ian McCall’s departure. Many had predicted it, many again had demanded it! He finally went in mid-March after his 3-0 flop at Kilmarnock.

The cup final, and the semi in fact (I wish more people would go to semis) were great days out. It was great to witness a win at Hampden – we’ve not had many, and despite losing the final, it was again wonderful too see our support flagged up and numerous.

The league campaign, over all, was disappointing, though there was something to cheer about on the last day, when a Barry Robson penalty guaranteed safety, and sparked a pitch invasion!

Most Arabs will be spending the summer dreaming of our European jaunt, and there’s already much talk of who’ll we’ll draw. We are straight into the second qualifying round as a seeded team, so I’m led to believe, and we’ll likely be going to: Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Ireland, Wales, or one of the small footballing nations like Luxembourg. If we got through that, we would have one more round, before we reached the lucrative group stages. Here’s hoping.

Who would dare to predict what might happen next season? Top half or bottom half? Who knows? Gordon Chisholm was handed the permanent manager’s role just before the cup final, and it’ll be interesting to see if he can keep the same level on commitment and performance that we showed in the last few games, since McCall was sacked. I always think we struggle to raise our game in the ‘less meaningful’ fixtures, against teams we can beat on our day. Last season’s example would be Killie, who we both beat and lost to 3-0, as well as a 5-2 drubbing and a 1-1 draw. For many a season this has happened – we can beat good teams and play well, and then play average sides and play like we were a team pulled out of the pub next door.

Hopefully Chisholm will see these games -v- Killie, ‘Well, ICT etc as THE must win games and climb the league a bit.

Last word has to go to Eddie Thompson, who has been magnificent since he took over, steering United towards financial security, whilst providing funds for signing players amongst other things. We’ve now attracted some good players to Tannadice, most recently Lee Miller, and this is down to one man, Eddie Thompson. He’s dignified, honest, and sensible, and we are very lucky to have him run our club, and we most certainly should repay him by buying as many season tickets as we possibly can. See the official website for details.