Derek Dougan

Alexander Derek Dougan was born in Belfast on 20 January 1938, the son of Jackie and Josie Dougan.[3] His father worked at Belfast docks.[3] His grandfather, Sandy, had played at half-back for Linfield, and two of Sandy's brothers also played for some of the leading clubs in Belfast.[3] As a child, Dougan would usually spend between four and eight hours a day playing football in the street.[4] His family were poor, and later in life Dougan joked that "on the street where I lived, if you paid your rent three weeks on the trot, the police used to come and see where you got the money from".[5] As a teenager he spent 18 months working at a toy factory whilst playing amateur football for Cregagh Boys.[6] He also trained with Linfield, but could not break into any of their junior teams.[6] He instead joined Distillery in 1953.[7] Manager Jimmy McIntosh handed him his first team debut on 5 February 1955, in a 0–0 Irish Cup first round draw with Glentoran.[8] Maurice Tadman, who succeeded McIntosh as the club's manager in the summer of 1955, preferred to use Dougan as a target man centre-forward, as Dougan's height made him adept at winning and flicking on headers in the opposition penalty area.[9]

Whilst playing part-time for Distillery he also worked at the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding company.[10] Though the maximum wage in England discouraged many of Belfast's top players from leaving their hometown, Dougan was determined to leave for the English Football League at the earliest opportunity, particularly so following the death of his mother in June 1955.[11] He began to attract scouts from England after helping Distillery beat Glentoran 1–0 in the second replay of the 1956 final of the Irish Cup at Windsor Park.[12] He played mostly at half-back in the 1956–57 season as Distillery finished sixth in the Irish League and ended up as runners-up in the Ulster Cup, City Cup, and County Antrim Shield.[13]

Dougan had trials at Preston North End and Bury, before he was signed by Portsmouth for a fee of £4,000 in August 1957.[14] "Pompey" struggled to a 20th-place finish in the First Division in the 1957–58 season, and some of his teammates resented Dougan for what he himself felt was the constructive criticism he offered in the dressing room.[15] He made his first team debut, providing an assist for Jackie Henderson in a 3–0 victory over Manchester United at Old Trafford.[16] He scored his first senior goal for the club in a 1–1 draw with Wolverhampton Wanderers. New manager Freddie Cox, who succeeded Eddie Lever at Fratton Park in 1958, took the club to relegation with a last place finish in 1958–59 season, though Dougan would miss much of the season with an ankle injury.[17]

Dougan was sold on to Blackburn Rovers for a fee of £15,000 in March 1959.[14] He scored on his Rovers debut in a 1–1 draw away to Arsenal at Highbury.[18] He scored twice on the opening day of the 1959–60 season, a 4–0 victory over Fulham, which began a sequence of five wins and a draw from Rovers's first six matches, at the end of which the club were in second-place and Dougan tallied eleven goals, four of which came in a 6–2 victory over West Ham United.[19] Though their league campaign petered out to an eventual 17th-place finish, Rovers reached the 1960 FA Cup Final at Wembley after Dougan scored the winning goal past Sheffield Wednesday in the semi-finals.[20] However, he did not enjoy his time at Ewood Park, and later wrote that "the dourness of the club matched that of the town. I could not shake off the depression that caused me to wake each day regretting that I had to go to the ground. Life was grey and monotonous".[21] This led to him handing in a transfer request the day before the final, which he later admitted was an occasion where his "vanity triumphed over common sense".[22] He was not at full fitness in the final itself, and had a quiet game as Blackburn lost 3–0 to Wolverhampton Wanderers.[23] He opened the 1960–61 season with a hat-trick in a 3–0 win over Manchester United and went on to withdraw his transfer request.[24]

Dougan was signed by Aston Villa in July 1961 for a fee of £15,000.[14] He was signed by manager Joe Mercer as a replacement for Gerry Hitchens, who had been sold on to Inter Milan earlier in the summer for £85,000.[25] Teammate Peter McParland later commented that "when Derek came to us at Aston Villa I think it was at a time when he was not taking the game particularly seriously".[26] After returning from watching his "Villans" teammates win the 1961 League Cup Final at Villa Park on 5 September, Dougan was a passenger in a car accident which killed fellow passenger Malcolm Williams and left Dougan with a broken arm and head injuries; driver and teammate Bobby Thomson was charged but found 'Not Guilty' of careless driving.[27] In November 2010 – three years after Dougan's death, Thomson claimed that Dougan had drunkenly pulled a deerstalker hat over his eyes, causing him to crash the car.[28] Dougan recovered after three months on the sidelines and ended the 1961–62 season with 12 goals in 27 matches.[29] He twisted his knee midway through the 1962–63 campaign after slipping in the street, and ended the season with 14 goals from 33 games.[29]

Dougan dropped down to the Third Division to join Peterborough United for a £21,000 fee in the summer of 1963.[30] He later admitted that "I had made a mistake in going to the Third Division when I was a First Division player".[31] The move did though have its benefits, as the club's physiotherapist managed to diagnose and eventually correct an ankle injury that had troubled Dougan for the previous five years.[31] He scored 20 goals in 38 league games in the 1963–64 season, and at the end of the campaign manager Jack Fairbrother was replaced by Gordon Clark, who Dougan said "renewed my sense of vocation".[32] He then scored seven goals in the club's 1964–65 run to the sixth round of the FA Cup, including one in their 2–1 win over top-flight Arsenal at London Road.[33] Peterborough's league promotion campaign failed despite their cup exploits, causing Dougan to remark that "after playing at Stamford Bridge it was not easy to go to places like Gillingham on a cold Tuesday evening, where they are waiting for you with their sleeves rolled up".[34]

Dougan returned to the First Division when he signed for Leicester City in May 1965 for a £26,000 fee.[34] However, he had a difficult relationship with manager Matt Gillies despite being the first choice striker at Filbert Street.[35] He scored 19 goals in 37 league games in the 1965–66 season to help the team to a seventh-place finish.[36] He scored 21 goals in 35 league and cup games in the 1966–67 season, but his 'free spirit' nature frustrated Gillies, who sanctioned Dougan's sale despite his good form.[37]

In March 1967, Dougan dropped into the Second Division after being signed by Wolverhampton Wanderers manager Ronnie Allen for a £50,000 fee.[14] He marked his home debut on 25 March by scoring a hat-trick against Hull City.[38] He ended the 1966–67 season with nine goals in 11 games for Wolves, and helped the club to secure promotion to the First Division.[39] He spent the summer of 1967 in the United States playing for the Los Angeles Wolves in the United Soccer Association, scoring three goals in eleven games to help Wolves to win the West Division title and then captained the side and scored a goal as they beat the Washington Whips 6–5 in the USA Final at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.[40]

Strike partner Ernie Hunt was sold to Everton for £80,000 in September 1967, which reduced the effectiveness of the Wolves attack, though Dougan still managed to finish as the club's top-scorer with 17 goals in 40 appearances across the 1967–68 campaign as Wolves retained their top-flight status with a 17th-place finish.[40] In November 1968, Bill McGarry replaced Allen as manager, and Dougan later described the seven years he spent playing for McGarry as "the most traumatic of my career".[41] Nevertheless, Dougan's form remained good, and he finished the 1968–69 season with 14 goals from 44 games as Wolves posted a 16th-place finish.[42] He spent the summer of 1969 in the United States as the club again entered the American leagues, this time calling themselves the Kansas City Spurs and playing in the North American Soccer League, where they won the NASL International Cup.[42]

Wolves enjoyed an excellent start to the 1969–70 season, winning seven of their opening eight games, but fell away to a mid-table finish after the shock retirement of 24-year old forward Peter Knowles, who left the game to become a full-time Jehovah's Witness volunteer.[43] Dougan had a poor season, limited to just ten goals in 33 games due to injuries and an eight-week suspension for verbally abusing a linesman in a home defeat to Everton.[44] In the return fixture at Goodison Park, he suffered a clash of heads with full-back Keith Newton and had to undergo major re-constructive surgery and was out of action for two months.[45] McGarry did not speak to Dougan during his two-month absence, but Dougan decided against issuing a transfer request as he did not want to further his reputation as a journeyman player.[45]

Wolves finished fourth in the 1970–71 season, with Dougan claiming 12 goals from 25 league games as he was rotated throughout the campaign with Hugh Curran and Bobby Gould.[46] Wolves also won the inaugural Texaco Cup after beating Heart of Midlothian 3–2 on aggregate in the final.[46] The following season, he formed an understanding with John Richards that teammate Derek Parkin described as the "best partnership in Europe", which helped to boost Dougan's scoring tally and make Wolves one of the top teams in the country during the early 1970s.[47] They qualified for the UEFA Cup, and Dougan scored a hat-trick in a first round 7–1 aggregate victory over Portuguese side Académica.[48] Wolves then progressed past Dutch side Den Haag by the same score, beat East German side Carl Zeiss Jena 4–0 on aggregate, and overcome Italian giants Juventus 3–2 on aggregate before knocking out Ferencváro of Hungary 4–3 on aggregate to reach the final.[49] There they lost 3–2 on aggregate to fellow English side Tottenham Hotspur, "Spurs" goalkeeper Pat Jennings putting in a number of saves at White Hart Lane to deny Dougan and Richards from levelling the tie after the first leg at Molineux ended in a 2–1 defeat.[50] Wolves finished ninth in the league in the 1971–72 season, but managed to beat Leeds United on the final day of the season to prevent them from reaching league champions Derby County's point tally, Dougan scoring his 24th goal of the season to secure a 2–1 win at Molineux.[51]

He scored 19 goals in 51 appearances in the 1972–73 campaign, helping the club to a fifth-place league finish and to the semi-finals of the FA Cup and League Cup.[52] They went on to beat Arsenal 3–1 at Highbury in the FA Cup third-place play-off match, which was the penultimate match of an unsuccessful five-year experiment.[53] He scored 15 goals in 50 appearances in the 1973–74 season, and helped Wolves to finally win a trophy. They beat Halifax Town, Tranmere Rovers (after a replay), Exeter City, Liverpool, and Norwich City to reach the League Cup final. They beat Manchester City 2–1 in the final to secure the club's first trophy in 14 years.[54] Dougan struggled with back injuries in the 1974–75 campaign, and after being limited to just six appearances throughout the season he announced his retirement in 1975.[55] He was granted a testimonial game against a Don Revie International XI in October 1975, which ended in a 0–0 draw.[56]

Dougan was appointed player-manager at Southern League Premier Division side Kettering Town in 1975, and immediately set on former Wolves teammate Brian Thompson as his assistant.[57] Goalkeeper Gordon Livsey remembered Dougan as a great motivator, but tactically limited.[58] Dougan negotiated shirt sponsorship with Kettering Tyres, which was the first such deal in England.[59] The FA demanded that the club remove the sponsor's logo, and were not impressed when Dougan initially attempted to circumvent the FA's demands by shortening the branding 'Kettering Tyres' to simply 'Kettering T'.[60] The logo was removed, though in June 1977 the FA decreed that a 2.5 square inch logo would be permitted in the future provided it was not "detrimental to the image of the game".[61] He led the "Poppies" to a third-place league finish and the Third Round of the FA Cup in 1976–77.[61] He helped to improve the career prospects of many of his players, particularly Billy Kellock, who went on to play over 250 games in the Football League after leaving Kettering in 1979.[62] Dougan left the club after chairman John Nash resigned in June 1977.[63]

Dougan succeeded Terry Neill – his future Northern Ireland manager – as chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) in 1970.[86] He advocated the belief that players should control their own destiny and used his position as Chairman of the PFA to further players' rights.[87] He oversaw the inaugural PFA awards in 1973–74, which included the PFA Players' Player of the Year, PFA Young Player of the Year, PFA Team of the Year, and PFA Merit Award.[88] He pushed for freedom of contract for players, and in 1978 accepted a compromise deal that allowed players to switch clubs at the end of their contracts, providing that the player's new club and old club could agree on a transfer fee, with a tribunal agreeing on a fee in cases where clubs could not agree.[89]

[Dougan] led the PFA, along with my predecessor Cliff Lloyd, all through negotiations in establishing a constitution and a collective bargaining agreement which have stood the test of time. at times he was a very controversial character, never frightened of taking on authority, which got him into trouble in his playing career and, needless to say, off the field as well. He led as chairman and brought in the players' right to move, which was the frontrunner of Bosman."

— PFA chairman Gordon Taylor, speaking after Dougan's death.[90]

In August 1982, he fronted a consortium – funded by Saudi brothers Mahmud and Mohammad Bhatti of the company Allied Properties – that took Wolverhampton Wanderers out of liquidation, beating a rival bid from Doug Ellis.[91] The brothers wanted anonymity, and were only revealed to the public after investigation by journalists.[92] He sacked manager Ian Greaves and replaced him with former Wolves teammate Graham Hawkins.[93] However the council rejected planning permission for the club to construct a supermarket, and the Bhattis were unwilling or unable to provide further funding for the club.[94] Wolves won promotion out of the Second Division in 1982–83, but were relegated out of the First Division in last place in 1983–84, and Dougan sacked Hawkins and replaced him with Tommy Docherty.[95] Dougan resigned in January 1985.[96]

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