Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
‘Dave always wanted his ashes at Dens Park’
A GROUP of men took their friend to one final football match at Dens Park — nine months after his death.
David Hendry, 69, was born and raised in the City of Discovery,
A lifelong Dundee FC fan, Dave, as his friends knew him, died in July last year.
He had previously told friends his final wishes were to have his ashes scattered on the pitch at Dens.
Four of Dave’s closest friends made an emotional pilgrimage to the is city on Friday to give him one last tour. Dave moved to Bury — Greater Manchester — in 1974, aged 27, before settling in Bolton shortly after.
Mick O’Hara, who had been a friend of Dave’s since the 1980s, said: “Dave was definitely an ‘adopted son’ of Bolton, but we all called him Scotch Dave. He never lost his sense of being from Dundee — including the accent.
“He was a bit of a legend around Bolton. He was a painter and decorator and worked for a load of different firms. A majority of local lads either learnt the trade from him or worked with him.”
After Dave died, the group of friends — Mick and his brother Christopher, John Hamer and Stephen Kitchen — planned to come to Dundee in November, but the trip was postponed until this month.
Mick said: “Dave was a massive football fan. A few of the lads around here said they wanted their ashes scattered at Old Trafford, but Dave always said he wanted his at Dens.
“I arranged it with Dundee FC and we went to Dens on Saturday with his urn and gave him one last tour of the city. We took him past his firstever house i n Mains Road. It’s close to the Bobby Cox stand at Dens, so that’s why he was a Dundee fan — he could hear the crowd on match days. Then we took him to watch the game. Unfortunately, Aberdeen put seven past them. “The guy in the seat next to his urn said it was really a really nice thing to do. Then we scattered his ashes behind the goal and had a toast to him, with his favourite whisky — Johnnie Walker Black Label. “Dave was one of life’s characters — a decent, proper, hard-working man who loved his family. “It was a pleasure to have known him.” Dave is survived by his three children and six grandchildren.