And Why The Doog Needed An Audience

As today is the 13th anniversary of Derek Dougan’s death, we have come up with a few recollections of just why he was a photographer’s dream.

No Midlands player of the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s seemed to have his face in the papers more often, the on-field antics of the long-time Wolves no 10 having much to do with that.

We have come up with 11 examples of why The Doog, who would now have been 82, was very different from the rank and file.

*He asked Blackburn for a transfer in the hours immediately leading up to their FA Cup final defeat against Wolves in 1960.

*He once ran out for an Aston Villa home game with a completely shaved head in an era when that sort of thing just wasn’t done.

*He dropped into the Third Division by joining Peterborough in his mid-20s despite having won nine Northern Ireland caps, including playing for them in the 1958 World Cup finals.

*He then dropped into Division Two with Wolves in 1967 despite having had two superb seasons with a Leicester side largely occupying a top-half place among the elite.

*Wolves fans saw his animated celebrations for the first time as he scored the goals against Hull on March 25 that gave him a hat-trick on his home debut.

*He was photographed throwing his shirt into the Los Angeles Coliseum crowd as Wolves performed their lap of honour after winning the 1967 tournament in the United States.

*He finished as Wolves’ leading scorer for their first two seasons back up and was given much new content for his various books after Bill McGarry was appointed as Ronnie Allen’s replacement in the second of them. The two did not get on!

*He was suspended for eight weeks in the middle of the 1969-70 campaign as a result of a sending-off from referee Keith Walker in a defeat at home to Everton.

*He was given a leg-up towards match fitness when, at the end of the ban, McGarry arranged a mid-season friendly away to tonight’s Molineux visitors Bournemouth (one of the manager’s former clubs).

*He scored the second of the goals by which Leeds were beaten at Molineux in May, 1972, and thus prevented from winning the double.

*He received a League Cup winners’ tankard in 1974 near the end of a terrific eight-year Molineux stay that brought him 123 goals, making him the seventh highest scorer in the club’s history. He now stands ninth in the list after being overtaken by John Richards and Steve Bull.

With crowd-pleasing ways like that, it’s easy to see why The Doog would have hated playing in empty grounds!