Derek Dougan

Distillery

Alexander Derek Dougan was born in Belfast on 20 January 1938, the son of Jackie and Josie Dougan. His father worked at Belfast docks. 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. As a child, Dougan would usually spend between four and eight hours a day playing football in the street. 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". As a teenager he spent 18 months working at a toy factory whilst playing amateur football for Cregagh Boys. He also trained with Linfield, but could not break into any of their junior teams. He instead joined Distillery in 1953. Manager Jimmy McIntosh handed him his first team debut on 5 February 1955, in a 0–0 Irish Cup first round draw with Glentoran. 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. Whilst playing part-time for Distillery, he also worked at the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding company. 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,…

Dougan represented Northern Ireland at schoolboy, youth, amateur and 'B' level as a wing-half and centre-defender. He made his senior international debut under Peter Doherty in a 1–0 win over Czechoslovakia during the 1958 FIFA World Cup on 8 June 1958. He had won nine caps before he joined Peterborough in 1962 when the drop to Third Division football left him out of international contention for the next three years. Bertie Peacock returned him to the team following his transfer to First Division Leicester City in 1965, and he missed just three of the next 37 internationals. He was named as captain when Terry Neill succeeded Billy Bingham as manager in 1971. He made his final appearance for Northern Ireland on 14 February 1973 in a 1974 FIFA World Cup qualifier against Cyprus. He won a total of 43 senior caps and scored eight goals in a 15-year international career. Despite playing alongside George Best for nine years, Northern Ireland did not qualify for a major tournament after the 1958 FIFA World Cup. An advocate of an All-Ireland soccer team, Dougan was also one of six Northern Ireland internationals to feature in the Shamrock Rovers XI v Brazil exhibition match in July 1973; the "Shamrock Rovers XI" was a pseudonym for an All-Ireland team, which also featured Republic of Ireland internationals. He scored one of the goals for Rovers in the 4–3 defeat. Both the Northern Ireland-based Irish Football Association and the Republic of Ireland-based Football Association of…

Dougan was a combative centre-forward who relied on his speed, strength and awareness to score and create goals. Former Peterborough United teammate Peter Deakin said that "his biggest strength was his ability in the air. If enough balls went into the area he would be on the end of 80 per cent of them". He had an excellent left-foot and was described as "streetwise" and "crafty", but was not a great passer of the ball. Opposition defenders did not like playing against him as he was strong and very difficult to defend against.

In 1967, Dougan represented Leicester City on the television show Quizball. A fan of psychedelic rock, he cut his own single, "A Goal for Dougie", in 1968. In 1969 published his first autobiography, Attack!. His media appearances became more frequent in the 1970s, and he was asked to make up part of ITV's four man panel to provide coverage of the 1970 FIFA World Cup, along with Malcolm Allison, Paddy Crerand and Bob McNab. Presenter Brian Moore said that the panel "gave football punditry a fresh intoxicating sparkle". Dougan went on to host a half-hour show on BBC Radio Birmingham, which previewed the weekend's football. He published a second autobiography, The Sash He Never Wore, in 1972 (in 1997, he republished the book under the name The Sash He Never Wore – 25 Years On). In 1974, he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews for an episode of This Is Your Life. Later in the year he published a novel, The Footballer. Author Melvyn Bragg wrote that The Footballer was "predictable" with "thinly drawn" characters, but praised the dialogue and the "narrative flair". Dougan reprised his role in ITV's World Cup coverage for the 1974 FIFA World Cup, with Brian Clough and Jack Charlton replacing Crerand and McNab. In 1976, Dougan assisted historian Percy M. Young in producing On the Spot: Football as a Profession, a social history book that included anecdotes and insight from Dougan to complement Young's research. He published a third autobiography in 1980, entitled Doog, which revealed his…