FAO Molineux Phil

[pastpirate]

Thought you might like to see this. It is a tribute to the Doog that appeared in our programme from the Forest game on the 1-9-07.

Cheers Jamie. (Not written by me by the way)

Thanks got to my football hating wife who typed it out for me. (would have taken me about 5 hours to do it)

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DEREK DOUGAN

As a rule, the footballing world is blessed every few years with a genuine maverick, a rebel with a controversial side, and this description fits neatly with the first half of the poacher-turned-gamekeeper Derek Dougan, a goalscoring centre-forward who died at home in Codsall, Wolverhampton at the age of sixty-nine on 24th June 2007.

A flamboyant player with a long, loping stride and increasingly wild hair, he was an outspoken and respected figure in the game as well as the first Irishman to score 200 Football League goals. Dougan’s often illustrious career crossed swords with Bristol Rovers in the shape of three appearances in a Peterborough shirt in the mid-1960s.

Born in Belfast on 20th January 1938, the eldest of six sons, Alexander Derek Dougan was a central defender in the Lisburn Distillery side that won the FAI Cup in 1956, working in the shipyards as his father and grandfather had before him, before being converted to centre-forward after his August 1957 move to Portsmouth for £4,000. A teenage League debut at Old Trafford, where Pompey had raced to a 3-0 lead by half-time and an astonishing 7-4 defeat at Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day 1957 were amongst the 33 League games (with nine goals) that preceded his £15,000 move to Blackburn Rovers in March 1959.

By then having progressed through the schoolboy ranks, Dougan had made the first of his 43 appearances for Northern Ireland, which brought eight goals in an international career ranging from the 1958 World Cup Finals to 1973 and encompassing five different League clubs and four years as a Captain. Although he scored 26 times in 59 League games for Blackburn, he is perhaps best remembered there infamously for handing in a transfer request (after scoring both the Blackburn’s semi-final goals) on the eve of the FA Cup Final, in which he played but Rovers lost 3-0 to Wolves. A July 1961 move to Villa for £15,000 produced a further 51 League matches and nineteen goals. Brilliant in the air and alarmingly subtle on the ground, Derek Dougan had flair and was prone to courting controversy, once shaving his head as a publicity stunt in the days before such follicly-challenged appearances became de rigueur. In June 1963, his career apparently in decline, he joined Third Division Peterborough United for £21,000.

For some reason, the move to London Road kick-started his career. Now taking life seriously, ‘The Doog’ ran in 38 goals in 77 League matches to rekindle the fires of interest amongst more celebrated clubs. More than that, though, he was taking life more seriously. Once dubbed ‘Cheyenne’ at Blackburn, he now developed the hang-dog moustache and looked more like a country-and-western singer in his prime, whilst the charismatic, extrovert showman side to his character continued to flourish. Those early days behind him, he progressed to Leicester City in May 1965, in a deal worth £25,000, and on to Wolves in March 1967 for £50,000. 68 League games and 35 goals in 244 (plus 14 as sub) League fixtures at Molineux cemented his name as one of the great figures of his footballing generation. Though suspended following to sendings-off early in the 1969/70 season, against Sheffield Wednesday and Everton. In 1974, he was included in the Wolves side that defeated Manchester City 2-1 in the League Cup Final, the only silverware gained in his career. Now keen to influence the game in other ways, Dougan became chief executive at Kettering Town in 1975, advocating shirt sponsorship long before its time, was an articulate and thoroughly respected chairman of the Professional Footballers’ Association, an author and television pundit. In 1982, he led the consortium that saved Wolves from an untimely demise. As recently as December 2005, he was one of the pall-bearers at the funeral of his erstwhile international colleague, George-Best. He leaves behind his German-born wife Jutta Maria and their sons, Alexander and Nicholas. For all his goals – four for Blackburn against West Ham in December 1959 and eight other League hat-tricks, including two each against Hull and Forest and three goals at Old Trafford in August 1960, not to mention three more against the Portuguese side Academica Coimbra en route to Wolves’ UEFA Cup Final appearance in 1972 – it is the free-talking, open-minded more mature Dougan whose place is recorded in football’s long and illustrious history.

What’s more, his predictably unorthodox foray into Third Division football brought three League games against Rovers and, of course, ‘The Doog’ scored in all three. In the 1963/64 season, Rovers and Peterborough drew 2-2 twice. First Dougan scored Posh’s first, as they fought back from a 1-0 half-time deficit at London Road, and then his goal put them 2-1 ahead at half-time at Eastville. Finally, in September 1964, he scored the second of three Posh goals as Rovers, having led through Alfie Biggs at the interval, were brushed aside 3-1 at London Road. His legacy is one from which football continues to benefit.
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I am not gas, I am a Pirate.

www.bristolroversmemorabilia.weebly.com The definitive list of Bristol Rovers programmes

[Molineux Phil]

One of my fondest memories of The "Doog" ?.scoring in the Anfield Road End for Wolves against Liverpool ,Liverpools opening game of the72/73 season Wolves loosing 2-3,was stud directly behind the goal prob the best headed goal i have seen in 50 years watching the game.Will write a feature about my "Love Affair" with thr "Doog" ASAP. By the way thanks for the interest Pirate.