Hartley hoping to cast a spell at Ibrox

IF Hibernian’s failure to win the Scottish Cup since 1902 is the most high- profile anomaly in our game, Dundee’ s tortured relationship with the same old trophy is less well known.

The last time they could call the Cup their own, stargazers were bracing themselves for a rare sight in the night skies above the UK.

At the time, few could have guessed Halley’s Comet would be back over Dens Park before the Scottish Cup would return there. It has now eluded the Dark Blues for coming up to 106 years.

Local folklore has it that a passing gypsy, upon seeing the trophy distastefully displayed in the window of a funeral directors’ shop, placed a sinister spell barring the Dark Blues from repeating their famous win over Clyde at Ibrox on April 20, 1910.

After neighbours Dundee United endured six final defeats, Tannadice boss Jim McLean admitted in his book Jousting

With Giants, that he began to buy into the tale of the cursed city as an explanation for his own club’s baffling Hampden hoodoo.

While United would eventually win the Scottish Cup under Ivan Golac in 1994, and Peter Houston in 2010, the cloud has remained over the other half of the city, with Dundee having reached the final, and lost, on four occasions since 1910, the last a 1-0 defeat to Rangers in 2003.

If manager Paul Hartley is acutely aware of the club’s painful past in this competition, he is also mindful of the fact he can shape the present.

This lunchtime he takes his in-form side to face Rangers at Ibrox, where Dundee hope to book a semi-final place for the first time in 10 years. But, if his club are to reverse the curse, he knows they are going to have to pass a fierce test of character in Govan.

‘It’s a long time since Dundee last won the Cup, and it’s something we want to do better in,’ nodded Hartley (below). ‘But, with the new group of players we’ve got, we have given ourselves an opportunity to get to a semi, and you never know what can happen after that.

‘ Considering we’ve been a First Division club for seven or eight of the last 10 years, and gone through administration as well, it’ s maybe no surprise we’ve not reached the semis. It’ s difficult, therefore, to build momentum as a club but we’ve managed to do that over t he last couple of years.

‘ One of the first things I targeted when I came in here (in February 2014) was to build a good cup run for the club, and even more for the supporters, because they deserve that for all the backing they’ve given.

‘But we’ve got a real tough game against Rangers, and will have to make sure we stand up to it. Our mentality is going to be tested. We can’t go there and freeze, because there are going to be 45,000 to 50,000 fans. We have to make sure we handle that.’ Rangers manager Mark Warburton sticks rigidly to a 4-3-3 system, while Hartley is more flexible and believes players, not tactics, win games. He expects a clash of managerial styles today, but envisions a good spectacle between the runaway Championship leaders and his own free-scoring side who are fifth in the Premiership but rated 5-1 shots by some bookmakers.

‘Rangers have a good team,’ said Hartley. ‘ They’re a real passing and possession team and look like they’re going to win the Championship. They’ve had a great season so far, and knocked Kilmarnock out in the last round.

‘Mark Warburton has brought a certain style to them. He has built a really good, young squad, who like to play in the proper manner. He did the same at Brentford, with the exact same style of play. Will it be the same on Saturday? Unless they change for us. Maybe Mark’s got something else in mind. But they have their own style and we’ve got ours. ‘Will their style suit us? Possibly, in that we both l i ke to play football. We like to get the ball down and pass it, but we showed i n drawing (0-0) at Celtic Park that we have another side to our g a me as well. We can find a different system that can get results. It’s not about systems for me. We can get caught up in systems. It’s about players. Is it a clash of managerial approaches? Possibly.

‘The bookmakers have us at 5-1. We are probably favourites in people’s minds because we are a Premiership club and Rangers are in the Championship, but I don’t see it like that. We have to go away from home, possibly to a full house at Ibrox, and that maybe makes them favourites.

‘We’ve just got to play how we’ve been playing since the turn of the year. We’ve only had one narrow defeat, at Aberdeen. It has the makings of a good, classic cup tie.’

For Hartley’s left-back, Kevin Holt, meetings with Rangers tend to produce career highs. In October 2013, he was part of the Queen of the South side who knocked Ally McCoist’s men out of the Ramsdens Cup in their own backyard, en route to winning the trophy with his hometown team.

Then, in December 2014, he scored the best goal of his career against Rangers — a fine free-kick in a 2-0 league win for Queens on the day McCoist’s resignation as Ibrox manager became public.

It’s fair to say his strike did not quite go as viral as he had hoped given the hullabaloo following’s McCoist’s exit. Should he help Dundee beat Rangers today, his efforts will surely not go as unnoticed.

‘It was the best I’ve scored,’ he acknowledged. ‘It was voted Goal of the Year at Queen of the South but it has 189 views on YouTube, and I think 180 views were by me and the other nine were my family! I’d love to get another goal this weekend but getting through the tie is the most important thing.

‘I’ve won at Ibrox before. Rangers were the first big team I played against and we beat them on penalties in the Ramsdens Cup. It was the best thing that had happened to me in football. We went on t o win t he Ramsdens Cup that season.

‘But it’s fair to say that beating Rangers at Ibrox — and reaching the Scottish Cup semi-finals — would top anything I’ve done in football.’