Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
The legendary manager
IN the second part of our serialisation of Steve Finan’s new book Jim McLean Dundee United Legend, the author examines the former Terrors manager’s legacy, both at Tannadice and across the city as a whole.
WE ardent Arabs, we’re football people.
Football is about tribalism, victory chants and the dirges of defeat. It’s about a will to win, going “in where it hurts”, and baying for the blood of referees.
What the hell has our football world got to do with a play in a theatre? How could the events of our world be represented by pose-about actors on a cosy stage? What would effete mummers know about Jim McLean’s white-hot desire for a Dundee United away win at Ibrox?
An awful lot, it turns out. The reaction to Phil Differ’s play, Smile, which explored the complex character of Jim McLean, was remarkable.
The Dundee public embraced it in a way that few, if any, stage productions in the city had ever managed before.
Smile sold almost every one of The Rep’s 450 seats for every performance of the 2020 run.
The really unusual thing, though, was that footsoldier Arabs “felt” it. It’s one thing to impress regular theatre-goers, it is quite another to pull in non-theatre-going people and put a tear in their eye and fire in their belly.
Smile gave another layer of history to the football club, the legend of “the world famous” was added to.
The play also deepened the mystique of Dundee United and Jim McLean. Better still,
Smile strengthened the already powerful place Dundee United has in the psyche of the city. But Smile did more than that. It also strengthened the city itself.
Ach, it was just a play, aye? Players that strut and fret their hour upon the stage and then are heard no more. No.
Too often Dundee has put itself down.
Perhaps we grew used to other people doing that.
Perhaps we are guilty of doing it ourselves. The importance of this play in changing the pattern cannot be underestimated. Smile helped lead us to a corner.
Dundee had long been dragging itself out of its postindustrial slumber when this play debuted, of course, and doing it well.
The town is different now, and Smile was another step, another rung.
But it was a play, just a play, only a play.
Yes. Although, when you think about it, we’d never really had anything like this before. What other book, play or film had reached in to grab a part of the fabric of oor toon and displayed it in such an inspiring light?
Name another Dundee United play that has done that? Name any play that has done that? We Dundonians rarely think about exactly why we should have confidence in the city. And passion. And a feeling of selfworth. And reasons to straighten our backs, lift our chins and say “Aye, we’re fae Dundee”.
That’s what the arts can do.
That’s what a play, a sculpture, a story can do. These things hold up a mirror to a city.
Perhaps surprisingly, the reflection shows much to be proud of, much to celebrate, many achievements to recall, and the images of great sons and daughters who etched their mark on the place. It helps us see the best of ourselves, and ourselves as we’d like others to see us.
This image showed us Jim McLean, a mercurial, proud man. A real man. A hardworking, determined man who achieved greatness right here within our town.
The play made big statements about Jim, that was its primary aim. But it also said much about what it is possible to do in the city of Dundee.
It is true. Smile was just a play, only a play.
Aye, but everyone who came out of that theatre had a little more pride in their city than when they went in.
There is an enormous and a lasting value in that.