Dundee v Celtic conjures memories for Tommy Coyne
After Saturday’s Scottish Cup tie between Dundee and Celtic, reporters wishing to talk to those who have made their mark in the preceding 90 minutes will pass their requests to a press officer called Tommy. Born 27 years ago, he was named after the striker whose goal separated the teams the last time Dundee defeated Celtic at Dens Park.
There are probably several other Tommys of around that age who were born in Dundee at the time. While he didn’t stay long Coyne sealed a place in the hearts of one half of the city and irritated the other by scoring freely after crossing the great divide from Dundee United. “Thank you very much for Tommy Coyne!” Dundee fans sang at derbies, to the tune of the old Cadbury’s Roses ad.
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Hide AdThere’s no getting away from it, it’s a long time ago now. And, for someone who once chronicled Coyne’s every move, more than a few frayed scrapbooks ago. So it’s a thrill to now be sitting opposite the man himself in a Glasgow restaurant. It’s unmistakably Tommy Coyne who rises to greet you even if he betrays evidence of a slight limp when he gets up from his seat.
A hip replacement several years ago means he does not even play fives now, nor does he go to the gym. Even so, he looks trim enough to still lead the line for Dundee, Celtic and any of the teams he once played for including, despite an accent by way of Govan, Republic of Ireland. He turned 52 on 14 November last year, the day Scotland hosted Ireland at Celtic Park in a vital European Championship qualifier.
It was a game you might have thought he would be desperate to attend, given his 22 caps for Ireland during days when Jack Charlton was reeling in players from all over with his elastic interpretation of eligibility rules. “I intended going,” says Coyne. “Then the closer it came I thought I am not sure I want to go. It meant getting tickets for me, my sons, maybe my dad too. That’s six tickets. It meant phoning up the FAI and saying I need six tickets. I don’t think so. They were only getting 2-3,000.”
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So he watched Scotland’s 1-0 victory at home. “I wanted Ireland to win,” says someone who travelled to Spain to support Scotland at the World Cup finals in 1982. “Scotland never gave me a game, so why would I want them to win? If Scotland are playing someone else I would want Scotland to win but if Scotland are playing Ireland, I’d want Ireland to win. I don’t think it would be right if I wanted Scotland to win.”
He is slightly more torn over his allegiance this weekend. Mitchell, his ten-year-old son, recently found the YouTube footage of his father scoring for Dundee past Celtic goalkeeper Alan Rough on 24 September, 1988. Remarkably, with the sides due to meet again in the fifth round of the Scottish Cup this weekend, it stands as Dundee’s last victory at Dens against Celtic (indeed, Dundee’s only ever victory over Celtic in the Scottish Cup was in 1894, before they’d even moved to Dens).
In truth, the strike isn’t one of his finest, though if you watch the move develop from the beginning, it says everything about Coyne the player. He chests a pass down inside his own half, sweeps the ball out wide, and then is there on the edge of the six-yard box to bundle in a cross from the left from Keith Wright, his old strike partner in a productive double-act dubbed the Cobra (Coyne) and the Mongoose (Wright).
“My son doesn’t want Dundee to beat Celtic again,” he says. “He said if Dundee win then that record is gone. I said I know but sometimes you want those records to go.
“He’s a Celtic fan but now he plays for St Mirren youths I have told him he must want St Mirren to win, even if they play Celtic. You have to. Tommy junior – he still looks for Dundee results, he was born in Ninewells. I’d probably like Dundee to win. It gives them a chance to go and win a trophy. Celtic will always win trophies. It is not often Dundee get the chance.”
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Hide AdEven given his links to Dens, this must be difficult for a Celtic fan to admit. Growing up on Broomloan Road, in a now demolished row of tenement houses in the shadow of Ibrox, his loyalty to Celtic was hard earned. He and his father, Tommy senior, were members of the Govan Brighton Celtic supporters’ club, based in an area known as “Wine Alley”.
“We used to go on the bus through to places like Dundee on the old road, through Auchterarder, places like that,” he remembers. “I watched Jocky Scott, who signed me for Dundee, in the ’70s when Dundee had a great team, and I’d be in the away end.” Despite his commitment to Celtic, Coyne was beguiled by football, whoever was playing it. “They used to open the gates at Ibrox with ten minutes to go and I’d get warned by my dad: ‘if I ever see you in watching that Rangers….’ But I’d go and watch. It was a game of football. I remember seeing Davie Cooper, who I played with briefly at Motherwell, tear them apart [for Clydebank] in a League Cup section game.