Imagine if you can a world where not every house had TV and the closest we got to the fun modern kids get from their Play Stations was seeing who could make the best animal shadows on the living room wall with the lights out and the coal fire burning. Where you had to go outside to use the toilet and curse if the neighbours got there first. That was still the way of it for a lot of Dundee families in the early 1960’s.

And into our world, that now seems dark, came the sunrise. One minute, darkness, then the coming of the light. That shining beacon of hope and triumph came in the shape of the league championship winning Dundee F.C. team of 1961-62. To a city that had never savoured a top league win in the entire history of both Dundee and Dundee United this was a historic moment, one to savour, and to those born in later years it is difficult to see how big a deal this really was. But for us who were there it’s not hard to understand why we could never support any other team in the whole wide world.

I was 11 years old when Dundee won the league and as both my parents were unemployed and we were a large family, they couldn’t afford to let me go to Dens every week. So I did the next best thing. When I wasn’t there I would pretend I was, go outside and close my eyes and listen to the roar of the crowd, kicking every ball. And when they played midweek games in winter the glow of the floodlights in the night sky and the singing of the crowd remain haunting memories. I remember playing footy in the backies with my pals. We were always Dundee players, there were no others for us, and to pretend to be Gordon Smith running down the wing or Alan Gilzean waiting to nod the crosses in and whenever we had to defend it had to be with a Bobby Cox sliding tackle.

The following season, the great European Cup run, saw Dundee paint their name in history in spectacular fashion. And it gripped the Dundee public in a way few sporting moments ever have or ever will. A prominent cinema flashed the latest score that Dundee were beating the German Champions 7-0, and apparently loud applause rang out despite the fact the film was interrupted. I was hospitalised in Bridge of Earn during the early stages of that cup run. But into my life then came two prominent members of that great Dundee team. The late, great Andy Penman and the unforgettable Ian Ure will always be knights in shining armour to me. They were big names, Ian was a regular in the Scotland team, Andy should have been, and they were big names in the Scottish game at that time. They didn’t have to care about a 12 year old, far from home, and feeling pretty lonely. Yet when they heard of my plight, they became my best mates, visiting me regularly in a place that seemed to a 12 year old to be the other side of the Universe from Dundee.

Andy, especially, was my unsung hero. I’ve never told anyone before how much his visits meant. The buses then were not like now and I was only able to get family visitors at weekends. Yet on his way to and from his home in Rosyth for training at Dens he would drop in to see me sometimes twice or three times a week. Modest and even a bit shy he seemed, a man of few words, but that didn’t matter, just being there, my Caniggia of the 60’s, was a dream come true. Ian sent me postcards from Belgium when they played Anderlecht and demolished them 4-1. I tuned into a radio in hospital to a foreign broadcast, heard the names Gilzean and Cousins, and by the tone of the commentators voice and the silence that followed, knew we had scored several times. We kids used our initiative then.

Andy was a brilliant player, with skill a plenty and his strong runs and great passing would not have been out of place in today’s great team in the making. He was the Penalty King and when he died several years ago my mind went back to those days in a hospital ward where he was my King Arthur. Ian wrote long screeds of letters that modern professionals wouldn’t dream of, usually when he heard I was to have one operation or test, and in one he admitted he once fainted when having fluid withdrawn from his knee. How he found time to write those letters, with a wife and two kids, I cannot fathom. But they helped in a way he could never have imagined. Ian Ure, Big Yogi as we called him then, was a towering figure with pure blonde hair and such aerial ability and strength in the tackle that he was a feared opponent. But of course, I knew he was a gentle, caring giant at heart.

There were no bad players in that team, they were majestic champions and many of the media of that time rated them and some still do as the best club team Scotland has ever produced. They were way ahead of their time in playing the continental game in a way no other British teams played then. Forgive me for remembering two in particular who made a wee lad’s dreams come true in a way he could never have imagined.

I got out of hospital in time to see the Sporting Lisbon game and the eventual downfall when we met A.C. Milan. (the ref from the game in Italy was later found guilty of taking bribes in matches). As I say, despite my age I knew then that I was seeing something special, witnessing things that I might never see again on that hallowed turf called Dens Park.

How many who were boys (or girls) like me in the 60’s will read Bob Laird’s articles on that great European venture and close their eyes and see them play again. I’m pleased Bob asked me to write this introduction to the European pages on his website. He’s put in a lot of time and hard work to get the old programme’s and having them scanned and downloaded to his pages.

Finally to any kids today who may read this. One day you will close your eyes and see Caniggia play again, and tell your bairns of the great team of the year 2001/2002, (for it will be), and you too will wonder if you were dreaming and such a thing could ever have happened at Dens Park. Pinch yourself, wake up, savour every moment of this modern dream team. The darkness is moving aside and the light is returning.