Another memorable Dark Blue Saturday

And, the winner is …

Erm …?

My favourite memory of Dundee at Ibrox on a Saturday … at 3pm .. is … erm …

CANNAE THINK OF ANY!!

Aw naw! Has the TV-inspired rescheduling of Scotland’s fixture list from Saturday to sabbath become so ingranied in my way of life that I cannae even recollect a decent hosting of Dundee at The Brox on the traditional kick-off time and date?!

I’ve memories of Dundee at Ibrox on a Sunday - the best probably being the 3-0 romp which preceded Gio’s ear-shattering rendition of Simply The Best and which was in itself preceded by the huge “2″ on a Red, White and Blue placarded Ibrox. But even enroute to winning that second of Advocaat’s championships, Jocky Scott’s Dens men dumped us 2-1 at The Palace on a wet and wintry Sunday afternoon.

The following season, 2000/2001, Marcus Gayle made his debut in a bleak mid-week home tie with the Taysiders. It was, however, a prospective signing, Claudio Caniggia, who stole the show for the visitors. The Argentine striker smacked in a belter of an opener and Stevie “Savo” Milne tied it up at 2-0 - this time it was Ivano Bonetti’s Dundee putting the boot in.

The last memorable win over Dundee at 3pm on a Saturday was the Scottish Cup final of 2003. But Big Amo’s goal in a dull game which sealed the treble was, of course, scored at sun-kissed Hampden.

Nope - in grabbing for Dundee games in Govan at the traditional time there’s only a hazy memory of me sitting up the back of the Broomloan as Mark Walters curls one in from a tight angle for a late eighties/early nineties 2-0 or 3-1 win but that’s it for league fixtures as far as my tiny brain’s concerned. My most prominent memories of Dundee at hame are, somewhat unfortunately, always of the three Scottish Cup matches, in four seasons, which took place in the pre-Souness days of hell and damnation.

1981/82, we beat them 2-0 with goals from Colin MacAdam and Derek Johnstone. It was a dreich day and I remember telling my uncle the crowd looked quite healthy. He laughed at me - kindly, mind. There was less than 17,0000 in attendance.

Thing is, that WAS a big crowd in those days, if you were 12 years old and couldn’t remember anything other than the shite we were being served up every week. Two seasons on and we drew 2-2 at Dens one saturday - the replay at a half-full Ibrox (HALF FULL! WOW!!!) the following Saturday was just as thrilling: We lost Dave Mcpherson to a red card after going 2-0 down to Cammy Fraser and Ian Ferguson. We fought back to 2-2 and I got a taste of the famous Rangers fighting spirit … only to see Fergsuon or Fraser nab the winner for The Dee.

So we bought both Fraser and Ferguson - only for another future Ger, John Brown, to come back to Ibrox and score the only goal of the game the following season. Bomber put the Gers out the cuo and, long before the chants of “Ally , Ally - get tae f*ck” started, I was the subject of some abuse myself: Bomber celebrated his goal by running over to the very part of the Govan stand in which I was sat and gesticulating a nice “Gerrit up yese ya cu*ts” to the home punters.

So we bought him as well and EVENTUALLY became a team which won league titles.

But meaningfully great memories of Dundee at Ibrox on a Saturday? Oh - The first home game of 2002/2003: Yes, that’s one. We’d drawn with Killie away in the opening match of McLeish’s first full season in charge. The following week gremlins in the new turnstyle system delayed kick-off by 20 minutes. As the punters came in they were virtually all wearing the new orange away strip. So were the team - in their first HOME game of the season! we won 3-0 - we eventually won the treble, agaisnt the same side, with our all-white away strip on … only Stef wore an orange top at Hampden that day. But I didn’t think we would win that league at the time of that second match and I didn’t like the orange strip .. so I was happy only to a modest degree.

THIS SATURDAY, however, The Gers can create a nice wee memory for us all and eradicate a more recent sombre recollection.

We couldn’t reclaim our place at the top of the SPL at the first attempt last week. The draw with Inverness caley was down to whatever it was down to. What’s for sure is that a repetition of that poor display this Saturday, a failure to take all three points from a struggling Dundee side will be the signal of a serious downturn in form.

The Gers’ve had six days’ rest and they’ve had six days to think about what went wrong and what they gave up at Pittodrie. That has to result in a backlash from which a side struggling to avoid relegatioin will suffer the worst consequences.

Big Dado, our man of the match last week, has even been able to watch reruns of the Caley game on his