Dundee goal hero pays tribute to fans

“Paul McGowan, he’s our friend” is a regular chant belted out at Dens Park. That friendly relationship with Dundee fans was only enhanced when he jumped into passionate supporters in the South Enclosure on Sunday to celebrate.

For the first time in 17 months Dens had fans in all four stands but there was only one place McGowan was heading after grabbing a dramatic equaliser against Hibs.

Punishment was doled out shortly afterwards as referee Alan Muir booked the 33-year-old.

“Celebrating like that is worth a yellow card, to be honest,” McGowan told The Courier.

“There was nothing in the game and it was an important goal. It was nice to pay the fans back.

“They can be a hard bunch to please but you could see them getting right behind the boys.

“Listen, we won’t always get a positive result, that’s just football. But when boys are giving everything, nobody can ever question that.

“Sometimes it might not be good enough but we’ve been on some run for the past few months. Three defeats in 21 games.

“We know how good a team we are and we are quite disappointed we never took three points from Sunday.”

The Dark Blues may have only picked up two points from their first three games but spirits are high at Dens Park.

Promotion last season has continued the feelgood factor into a positive League Cup campaign.

“The confidence is bleeding out of the changing room,” McGowan added.

“It is a great bunch of boys and we are playing well.

“We won’t be judged on the likes of Celtic Park but games like Sunday and the one coming this weekend we will be.

“We have acquitted ourselves well and shown we are more than capable of pushing up this league.

“On Sunday, we showed great character – that’s something that’s been questioned quite a bit in my time here but fair play to everyone in our squad.

“We kept going and could have won it in the end.”

So far in their three league games, there have been 14 goals scored as Dundee bid to become the Premiership’s entertainers.

But McGowan reckons things will settle down on that score as the Dark Blues get used to top-flight football.

“Sunday and the St Mirren game were endto-end and it’s tiring watching those games, never mind playing,” he added.

“We are good value for money, people are on the edge of their seats with the players we have.

“At times it is ‘you attack, we attack’. Sometimes we do need to take the sting out and we will learn that. Just settle down a bit.

“They are entertaining games, I’ll give you that, but they are hard to play in.”

OUR FRIEND: Dundee’s Paul McGowan joined fans in the stand to celebrate his dramatic equaliser against Hibs.