Last man to fire Scottish club to European Cup semi-final is turning 67 and gets up at 5am for work

It took a few seconds to reconcile the man in work overalls with the younger version of himself. There goes the last man to score a goal to send a Scottish club into the regulation semi-final stage of the European Cup, I thought to myself. Or maybe I didn’t. “Bloody hell, it’s Davie Dodds!” is probably nearer the truth.

There’s never not a good time to catch up for a pint with the man in question. It’s a rare privilege since he rarely agrees to interviews these days. As he exclaims himself when I phoned to ask if he had time to discuss the part he played for Dundee United in a European Cup quarter-final tie: “It was bloody 41 years ago!”

Still, the return of Rapid Vienna to Tannadice for a Conference League qualifying tie poised at 2-2 following the first leg in Austria last week seems too good an opportunity not to at least try to request some time with the former striker, who turns 67 next month. Especially since, as I explain to him, he’s been in my mind since spotting him on route to meeting Pressley, his former teammate.

Rapid were the opposition for the aforementioned goal and yes, it was over 41 years ago. It was expertly struck on the turn from his favoured distance of about ten yards out. Actually, this counts as long range for Dodds. As Eamonn Bannon remarked with a smile when I told him I was hoping to speak to his old pal. “Never took penalties, of course. Too far out!”

It makes Dodds’ goal return of 150 in 321 outings for United even more impressive. It wasn’t bad at Aberdeen, either – 26 goals in 94 appearances following a short spell in Switzerland. And at Rangers, too, where the Dundonian struck four goals in just seven league starts for the team he supported as a boy (his father supported them). It’s where he played with Pressley, which might surprise some since it feels like they belong to different orbits. Indeed, they sat alongside each other on the bench for a Champions League tie against Marseille, which seems slightly mind-blowing.

Dodds enjoyed quite a career. And quite a selection of clubs – Neuchetal Xamax were his side in Switzerland, where teammates included German legend Uli Stielike. Like seemingly every Dundee United player of his era, there were also ‘clubs that got away’. European Cup holders Liverpool wanted to sign him in 1978. Jim McLean said no, not even informing the player. Celtic wanted to sign him in late 1984 for a record fee between Scottish clubs. Again, McLean said no.

I supported Rangers but said yes to Celtic

“A reporter from the Daily Record phoned me and said, ‘Celtic are putting in a bid of £300,000 for you - I know you are a Rangers supporter, would you sign for Celtic?’” recalls Dodds. “Davie Hay was the manager. I said, ‘Yeah, no problem, tell them to put the bid in’. Wee Jim knocked it back. So that was Liverpool and Celtic….”

It seems notable that Dodds is still working. That’s what had struck me when I saw him walking in the centre of Dundee. The football agenda just now is dominated by clubs simply trying to qualify for the group stage of the Champions League. Well, Dodds scored the goal to get United into the last four of what was then known as the European Cup and scored against AS Roma in the semi-final.

Is Hans Krankl, the great Austrian striker who played for Rapid, getting up at the crack of dawn to begin a day’s work? Is Antonin Panenka, the legendary penalty innovator who also graced the Tannadice turf on the evening in question, cleaning toilets, which is part of Dodds’ remit these days? Of course not, although they are both a good bit older. Dodds plans to retire when he hits 70 but won’t ever complain about the graft.

“I just enjoy life, my own life,” he says, citing holidays in the family caravan at Seton Sands and in Tenerife at Cheltenham-time as well as golf at weekends his Dundee United commitments – he is a club ambassador - permitting. We are speaking in a pub between Broughty Ferry and central Dundee. It’s not quite in the shadow of Tannadice, scene of so many great European nights where Dodds played a central role, but it’s near enough. To his fellow regulars, he’s just Doddsie.

Life after football

He details his post-football life. He ran a pub initially, called Rendezvous. “I had it for five years. Profits were staying the same, overheads were going up. I said, ‘I am going to sell it and do something else’. A girl that used to work with me in the pub had her own cleaning business. I don’t know why, but I said: ‘I fancy doing the cleaning business.’ I called it Rendezvous, because that was the name of my pub. That was 20 years ago. It took a while to build up, but now it’s fine.”

He employs two others part-time but is prepared to get his hands dirty, which means getting up at around 5am. “Toilets and canteens have to be cleaned before the workers start, at half seven,” he says. “It’s technical nowadays – it’s not just a feather duster, it’s solvents and that now to get plastic off and stuff.” He operates at two new build sites in Dundee and is finished by early afternoon. “I like getting up in the morning,” he says. “I don’t like staying in the house, I have always been up and out. A couple of pints in the afternoon and then home for my tea.”

It doesn’t sound completely different to his life as a footballer, though mercifully he is his own boss now. He isn’t forced to kowtow to that most fearsome foreman, Jim McLean. They never saw eye to eye. McLean had a particular problem with strikers, it seems, and when United faced Rapid in the second leg, Dodds hadn’t scored for – shock, horror – three matches.

Inevitably, McLean wasn’t happy. “The performance of our front players is causing concern,” he writes in his always insightful programme notes for the match. “The very hard tackling from behind is still being endured by our strikers, but their link-up and goal threat must be improved. I will be looking for decidedly better form from Davie Dodds and Paul Sturrock in both departments.”

‘I did everything I wanted to’

What’s notable on re-watching highlights of the second leg v Rapid is Dodds responding in the way the genius McLean no doubt suspected he would, by ramming the words back down his throat. Something else is also worth highlighting. Ironically given McLean’s point about tackling from behind, Dodds commits a typical striker’s challenge when barging into the back of an opposition forward in what looks like a very good shout for a penalty. It’s not given and United cling onto the lead secured by Dodds’ 23rd minute strike. Derek Stark’s away goal two weeks earlier proved crucial since the teams were tied 2-2 on aggregate.

Dodds can’t remember the penalty escape. “I am surprised Wee Jim didn’t haul me off!” he says. But he does of course remember the goal, despite what he earlier claimed. He counts it among the three most important he scored for the club, along with the opener in the following month's 2-0 home leg semi-final victory against AS Roma and another opener, this time v local rivals Dundee in 1980’s League Cup final win.

“I was lucky enough to play for my hometown heroes (United), the team I loved Glasgow Rangers (where he was also first-team coach), and played at every level for Scotland – under-15s, under-18s, under-21s and I scored for the senior team (on his debut, v Uruguay),” he says. “I did everything I wanted to in my career. I won the league with United. I was at Rangers eight years, won leagues there.” He was particularly touched by the reception he received from Aberdeen supporters when he was introduced at Tannadice at the last game of last season.

“I don’t speak much about football,” he adds. “I don’t do interviews very much. I don’t speak about it here (in the pub). I have never done a book. But sometimes, often when I am in bed, I think: ‘I really have done everything I wanted to do’.”