Dark Blues icon was denied his finest hour
Dundee legend Doug Cowie has passed away at the age of 95.
Regarded by many as the greatest player in the club’s history, Cowie made a record 446 appearances in Dark Blue, scoring 24 goals.
He is the only Dundee player to have played in two World Cups on his way to winning 20 Scotland caps, and won two League Cup winners’ medals, and was a runner-up in the League Championship and Scottish Cup
Cowie’s 16 seasons at Dens Park – another record – were among the most successful in the club’s history.
The centre-half signed for Dundee from his local Junior club, Aberdeen St. Clements.
He made his competitive debut on February 23, 1946, and was denied his first piece of silverware on the final day of the 1948/49 season after Dundee lost at Falkirk to hand the title to Rangers by one point.
Cowie would go on to play a major part when the Dark Blues won back-toback League Cups against Rangers in 1951 and Kilmarnock in 1952.
But Cowie was denied a treble when Dundee lost the 1952 Scottish Cup Final against Motherwell.
While he started his career at centrehalf, Cowie always preferred to play left-half, and became part of the famous half-back line of Tommy Gallagher, Doug Cowie and Al fi e Boyd.
Cowie made his international debut in 1953 alongside club-mate Billy Steel against England in front of 97,000 at Wembley, and the 2-2 draw was the first of 20 caps, which make him the secondmost-capped player in the club’s history.
A year later, he became the first Dundee player to play at a World Cup, featuring against Austria (0-1) and
Uruguay (0-7) in Switzerland, and four years later in Sweden, he played in another two matches against Yugoslavia (1-1) and Paraguay (2-3), which turned out to be his last games for Scotland.
In the summer of 1961, manager Bob Shankly decided to free the 34-year-old, citing age as the reason. But, just a few weeks later, Doug was disappointed to see Shankly sign Gordon Smith, who was three years his senior, and Dundee would win the League title the following year.
Always a gentleman, Doug was honoured by the club when they named one of their original hospitality lounges at Dens “The Doug Cowie Lounge”.