Pre-Season Training in Romania

One of the great things about travelling abroad with Dundee - especially if there are only 5 of you! - is that you can get up close and sit on the bench watching the team training.


Here Jim Duffy puts the players through their paces in the Romanian sunshine, taking full advantage of Rapid's excellent training centre on the outskirts of town. Thankfully the players were spared training in the mid-afternoon when temperatures soared to over 40 degrees.

Juan Sara displayed the kind of lethal finishing in a game of 5-a-sides that we never quite saw in competitive matches, and Jim Duffy decided against offering Allan Kettles a game, instead opting to sign Real Madrid's Jonay Hernandez-Santos as full back for the coming campaign. Jonay let the cat out of the bag at the casino disco after the tournament, giving Dees Down South an exclusive on our latest signing.

Another Romanian image

Here's the impressive sight of the floodlit Giulesti Stadium in Bucharest, home to Rapid and venue for Dundee's two "competitive" pre-season games in Romania.

Rapid Burcharest would visit Dens the following week in a return friendly.

More from Romania

Is this Dundee's smallest-ever travelling support? Just 5 fans travelled to Romania - almost as many as United take to Hampden for a cup semi-final!

Copa Casino Astoria

In the summer of 2002, Dundee's "Latino style" of football was in great demand, and the club were invited to take part in a televised pre-season tournament in Romania sponsored by the local Astoria Casino.


The Dundee fans who travelled, including Fraser & Allan from Dees Down South, were invited to the press conference to launch the tournament. The media took almost as much interest in the travelling fans as the players and staff, such was the novelty of Western fans visiting so soon after Nato bombings.

Jim Duffy is pictured above with the trophy provided by the sponsors (who also kindly provided free food and drink for the fans all week!). Unfortunately this was as close as we came to lifting the cup!

Pre Season Down South

Dundee played a couple of pre-season games in England in 1998, which gave Dees Down South members the chance to see their team in action.

On Friday night was a game at Kidderminster, followed by a match at Southport less than 24 hours later on Saturday afternoon.

Pictured, Jocky Scott gives Barry Smith some instructions from the touchline at Southport.

Dees at the World Cup

Visiting the Auld Alliance pub in Paris at the 1998 World Cup, I came across this DFC pennant behind the bar.

Other connections to the Dees at that World Cup were the Scotland manager (Craig Brown), goalkeeper Jim Leighton, defenders Tosh McKinlay and Colin Hendry, and Denmark midfielder Morten Weighorst.

The Scotland squad also included a certain Craig Burley who went on to play briefly for the Dees.

Jim Duffy in Croydon

Back in February 1999, Jim Duffy joined Dees Down South for their meeting at the Skylark (Wetherspoon) pub in South End, Croydon.

Expecting Jim to join us for an hour perhaps, we were delighted that he stayed all evening - despite being a teetotaller! - to regale us with stories of his time at Dens.

Stories included how we got the Firkin Brewery sponsorship, the Coca-Cola League Cup semi-final, Ron Dixon and finances (some things never change!)

Jim - Chelsea youth coach at the time - was given honorary membership of Dees Down South, and for years we were proud to be "Duffy's Dees!"