Eamonn Bannon on Dundee United’s class of 83: ‘The shame is it will never be repeated’

O n 15 May 1983, Eamonn Bannon should have been part of Dundee United’s squad at a civic reception. This extraordinary team under an extraordinary manager, Jim McLean, had won the Scottish Premier Division a day earlier. Bannon scored United’s second goal in a 2-1 win at the home of Dundee, United’s great rivals. “The real shame is it will never be repeated,” Bannon says. “Unless Dundee United are bought by a Middle Eastern country.”

Bannon was honouring a prior commitment. “I had agreed to play in a testimonial for Jim McArthur, the Hibs goalkeeper,” he explains. “I drove to Edinburgh that Sunday, rain coming down like stair rods. Hungover.”

Bannon was to come up against the former Hibs and Newcastle defender, John Brownlie. “I’m left-wing, he is right-back,” Bannon says. “Two minutes into the game, he sticks me up in the air. That was it, game on. Suddenly I’m going crazy. It was only at half-time I asked myself why I was having a running battle with this guy. Twenty-four hours earlier, we won the league.”

Bannon was again a notable absentee as United’s class of 83 took to the field at a recent Tannadice fixture to mark the 40th anniversary of the only top-fight title in the club’s history. Where was the man who scored a rebound from his own saved penalty to send United two up at Dens Park?

“I said to the guy: ‘I think it’s time to draw a curtain over it,’” says Bannon of his response to being invited back. “I think it casts a bit of a shadow over players who are at the club. When I was a player, they used to drag old players who had won the cup out and I thought: ‘God help me if I ever end up like that.’ I’d love to meet up with the boys, a private thing, just for old times’ sake, but something the club organise and