Your Dundee fans debate Alan Gilzean’s claim as club’s greatest ever
Your Dundee supporters are asked to name the club’s greatest ever player as the Dens Park crowd prepares for the upcoming fixture. The debate pits Alan Gilzean, the smooth operator of Tannadice Mr Dunfermline East Fife Hampden, against a livewire striker who once dazzled at East Kilbride.
A legendary 1962 side
By JIM HENDRY, EDDIE ISAAC, PAUL FORSYTH AND ALAN HENDRY, 2 October 2026, there are 11 legends lauded in Hector Nicol’s Up Wi’ The Bonnets as Dundee FC prepares to do battle at modern‑day Dens Park, a stadium whose decrepit look belies Champions League proportions. There can be little argument that the team which won the club’s only top League title in 1962 and then mesmerised the Continent on its way to the European Cup semi‑final was the best ever side. Legendary scholar, commentator and acknowledged football expert Bob Crampsey even went as far as declaring they were Scotland’s best ever club side, stressing the inclusion of the Lisbon Lions in that judgment.
Gilzean’s lasting legacy
Alan Gilzean’s record of 169 goals for the Dark Blues reads like a fairy‑tale, many of them soaring headers, and four second‑half goals at Ibrox in a 5‑1 win helped seal the 1962 title. He also featured in Dundee’s European Cup double at Heysel Stadium when the side dismantled Anderlecht before a Belgian record crowd of 64,073 – a figure that still stands. Gilzean claimed Scotland Hall of Fame status with a Hampden winner over England in 1964, and later enjoyed an outstanding career with Spurs, where he remains worshipped.
His memory is kept alive in a lounge named after him at Dens, a 1980s fanzine that urged “Eh Mind O’ Gillie”, and a shrine in the corner of a well‑known Coupar Angus hotel, the town of his birth. A close link existed with Doug Cowie, who welcomed the young Gilzean into the fold in 1957 and later scouted local talent such as Dave Narey, Davie Dodds and John Holt for the benefit of the club.
Other contenders from the club’s early days include Liney, Hamilton, Cox, Seith, Ure, Wishart, Smith, Penman, Cousin and Robertson. Billy Steel, signed from Derby County for a Scottish record fee of £23,500, helped secure back‑to‑back League Cup triumphs in the early 1950s against Rangers and Kilmarnock, his magic and sharp tongue endearing him to the Dens crowd.
More recent greats feature former captain and manager Jim Duffy, the playing‑and‑managerial legend, Jocky Scott and Gordon Wallace, who scored the solitary goal that beat Celtic in the 1973 League Cup final – the club’s last major honour. Wallace benefited from crosses by Easter Road legend Gordon Smith, a routine that fed many of Gilzean’s famous headers.
Despite the wealth of talent, Gilzean stands head and shoulders above his peers, his aerial prowess and knack for scoring in crucial moments cementing his status as the Greatest Dark Blue of all time. The article also nods to Dundee United’s own icon, David Narey, whose quiet, continental‑defender style epitomised Jim McLean’s United of the 1980s, linking the discussion back to Tannadice.