Clocks, bridies & Jim McLean's pyjamas - Dundee Utd's 1983 title win

The 1983 success remains Dundee United's sole top-flight title

Amid the haze of time and of booze consumed in celebration, the one thing they all remember is the clock.

Even four decades on, Paul Hegarty swears it stopped at half past four. And Dundee derby veteran Hamish McAlpine confesses it was only that afternoon that he first noticed it hanging above the tunnel at Dens Park.

It is no longer there, having apparently been removed for safety reasons, but it retains a special place in the memories of the players who earned Dundee United their solitary Premier League title.

It was on 14 May, 1983 - exactly 40 years ago today - that Jim McLean's side won the league at Dens.

They beat their city rivals 2-1 to hold off Celtic and Aberdeen. An Aberdeen side who had hoisted a European trophy just three days earlier - Alex Ferguson having led the Pittodrie side to Cup Winners' Cup glory against Real Madrid - and would go on to secure the Scottish Cup the following weekend.

It made for a remarkable climax to the campaign, the top three being separated by just one point having scored 256 goals between them and with the prospect of a play-off to decide the champions remaining alive until the final few seconds of the season.

As it was, United's victory ensured that they were the ones flying the flag, Aberdeen's 5-0 skelping of Hibernian and Celtic's 4-2 triumph over Rangers at Ibrox being rendered moot by the Tannadice side's 24th league win of the campaign.

While the venue of their coronation made it more special, their succession only came after a fraught finale in front of 29,106 fans wedged inside a heaving Dens Park.

"It was very tense and nervy and was a game I didn't enjoy," winger Eamonn Bannon says. "And I remember just being physically and mentally drained. You see players go mental after they win leagues, but I was very subdued. We didn't play well and it was a real anti-climax for me. I just felt shattered."

Such emotions are understandable in the circumstances, but the game had started better than the league leaders could have hoped. Ralph Milne marked the weekend of his 22nd birthday with a goal so breathtaking that it has since become immortalised in song.

On the 14th of May, 1983,

Six minutes into the half,

The ball soared over Kelly's head,

And it was Happy Birthday, Ralph.

The lyrics do not do justice to the moment. Davie Narey won the ball in the United half and guided it into the centre circle for Paul Sturrock, who pivoted and shunted a pass into the path of Milne.

The winger almost reluctantly assumed possession near the halfway line and casually shuffled past Stewart McKimmie before ambling forward, his strides lengthening as he advanced. Eventually, he seemed to tire of such exertions, glanced up and nonchalantly chipped the ball over goalkeeper Colin Kelly from 25 yards.

Usually deployed on the right - although equally adept at playing off a central striker - Dundonian Milne was a key tactical pawn in McLean's innovative formation, something Sturrock describes as an early 4-5-1 in which many of the components were adaptable.

"Jim McLean was a genius as far as I was concerned," Sturrock once said. "His training was revolutionary and his coaching transformed me. As for his man-management skills? Well, that's another debate."

McLean, after all, withheld his side's £50 entertainment bonus after a 6-1 win over Motherwell a couple of seasons earlier, reasoning that, having scored four times in the opening 17 minutes, they did not do enough thereafter to keep the crowd engaged.

"We weren't best pleased, but that's just the way he was," says McAlpine, chuckling. "We were all on the same wages, which I think was the lowest in the league, but the bonuses were great, so you had to win to get some decent dosh."

It was not the first time, and neither would it be the last, that the manager employed such a tactic. However, such methods helped foster a togetherness among his young squad, who banded together against a manager whom they all respected but very few actually liked.

Take Bannon, for example, a favourite target for McLean's ire. He was too clever for his own good, the manager thought, and too willing to defend himself when criticised.

Indeed, former team-mates recall jostling for seats to the winger's right because of the manager's habit of working round the dressing-room in an anti-clockwise direction when berating his players.

McAlpine recalls that, during the interval that day at Dens, Bannon was upbraided for missing a 17th-minute penalty kick, even though he reacted quickest to lash the rebound past the prone Kelly.

"I was never nervous taking penalties," the winger says. "But I remember having to wait three or four minutes to take it and there was all sorts going on around me. I made the mistake of changing my mind and the keeper saved it, but I was lucky it came back to me and I whacked it in."

United led 2-0 at Dens but endured a nervy conclusion

Regardless of such fortune, the two-goal advantage appeared to confirm that the title was heading to Tannadice.

But there was still time for a twist. Iain Ferguson - who would score the winner for United when they came from behind to beat Barcelona at Camp Nou four years later - rifled past McAlpine before the break to haul Dundee back into the game and set United nerves jangling.

"It really rattled us," Bannon says. "We got anxious and starting booting the ball rather than passing it."

The game remained delicately poised. "Your deadliest enemies could stop you winning the league; can you imagine the pressure? You had to live in the town; if they had been able to do that, it would have become folklore," Sturrock said.

Sturrock had been unable to train during the previous couple of months because of a pulled hamstring but played every game during the run-in until the muscle finally ruptured that day.

"It felt like another 90 minutes," he recalls of the half hour he spent watching from the bench. "Every time the ball went in the box, you were cringing. I couldn't watch the last couple of minutes, it was so nervy."

So much so that, even United's phlegmatic goalkeeper was panicking. "I kept shouting to the dugout 'how long to go?' because we were hanging on," says McAlpine, a penalty-taking, crossbar-swinging, cult hero. "The final few minutes seemed like an eternity."

That it took until the last few moments of the campaign for such doubts to creep in were a consequence of United thinking their title hopes were over after losing 2-0 at Celtic Park in April. That defeat left them three points off the pace with another trip to the east end of Glasgow pending.

"At that point, I honestly believed the league was beyond us," McLean admitted. "In fact, it's a miracle that we've won this title. Twelve players - the 12 who played against Dundee at Dens - have achieved this tremendous success."

The manager was being a little disingenuous with his claim, given 20 players made league appearances for United that season, but the statistics were remarkable enough to need no exaggeration.

Only 14 men played more than five times; six were native to the city; 10 had come through the youth ranks; and transfer fees were paid for just two, £192,000 being lavished on Hegarty and Bannon.

McLean had spent 12 years building a team to win the championship and spent a further decade attempting to emulate them, but in that one glorious season, it all fell into place.

"That United team, it was an exceptional side," Sturrock says. "People forget that the following season we got to the European Cup semi-final and then found out that the referee had taken a bribe. So we could have been in the final against Liverpool. I mean, Dundee United? It's incredible really."

The same could be said of the conclusion to their campaign. United's shallow squad roused themselves to win their final six matches and overhaul both Celtic and Aberdeen.

Each of those games, including three consecutive 4-0 wins ahead of the decider, were vital, but one in particular stands out: having lost at Celtic Park in April, United returned to Glasgow and secured a 3-2 victory, despite the dismissal of Richard Gough.

"That was the turning point, a real game-changer because it put us a point ahead having been written off ," Bannon says. "All of a sudden, we had our noses in front and we kept winning from there on in."

Ralph Milne scored the goal that ultimately clinched the title and was a talisman all season

For all that he recognises its importance, Bannon's recall of the game is sketchy. "I remember the pitch being like a beach, big Goughie getting sent off and Ralph scoring a great goal, but beyond that… did we get a penalty?"

They did. And he scored it, adding to Hegarty's opener before another virtuoso effort by Milne, who took a cross on his chest and lashed a 25-yard volley past Pat Bonner.

The winger had also scored twice before being sent off in the win at Pittodrie a few weeks earlier. "Ralph, that season, was fantastic," Hegarty says. "There were games that either he or Paul Sturrock won almost by themselves."

The triumph in Glasgow moved McLean's men within a point of Celtic and they went top for the first time that weekend, towsing Kilmarnock while Celtic were losing to Aberdeen, who were four behind with two games in hand.

The failure of Ferguson's side to win at Easter Road seven days later, coupled with another thumping United win at Morton, ensured it was in their own hands.

"It clicked for me that we had a right chance with about five games to go," McAlpine says. "But that game at Cappielow is the one that stands out because I remember the club organising buses for the fans."

"Aye, that was a nice move by Wee Jim," Bannon adds. "It was like rent-a-crowd and it made a massive difference because our lack of away support meant we really had to win games off our own back. That makes it even more remarkable."

So, too, does the fact United played a chunk of that match without a recognised goalkeeper after McAlpine went off injured. "I got a stud above my hip, which left a hole above the bone and seized me up a bit," he recalls. "But I hung on until we were 3-0 up before I went off and we always knew Heggy was more than capable anyway…"

"It didn't feel that way at the time," says Hegarty, who pulled on the gloves and maintained United's clean sheet. "I was almost as nervous as the day at Dens, worrying about what Wee Jim would say if I let one in…"

By then, the superstitious McLean was already riven with anxiety, the tension having built to such an extent that he steadfastly refused to arrange any official celebrations before the title was won.

Hegarty recalls the players leaving Dens and wandering the 100 yards or so down Tannadice Street for a drink in the United boardroom before being obliged to attend a supporters' function in Coupar Angus.

After that, they retired to Frank Kopel's house, the defender and his wife having decided to host an impromptu party that continued until the early hours.

Bannon was there, too, but still nurses a sense of regret that "Wee Jim was too miserable to rent a place" for a proper party. "It was very subdued and everything was off the cuff and a bit low key. I wish there had been an organised event."

Jim McLean was too superstitious to arrange any official celebrations for afterwards

Not everyone had such a restrained evening, though. Sturrock has a hazy memory of the manager, dressed in his pyjamas, kicking him out of his house at seven in the morning; something McAlpine corroborates.

"I couldn't tell you most of what happened because we had a right few bevvies," he says. "God knows where we went, but I know we were in Wee Jim's house for a while and Luggy reckons he was given a swearing."

"I know this much," Sturrock adds. "We partied big time. For about four days solid, we were never home."

The party continued at Station Park in Forfar the following day, McLean having committed to taking a strong team to play in a testimonial.

Almost every member of the league-winning side played some part despite many of them being barely able to stand, never mind run, with the injured Sturrock despatched by his hungover team-mates to find food to soak up the alcohol.

"I was sent to find a man who had a shop that sold bridies," Sturrock said. "Some boy told me where the guy lived, so I knocked on his door. I don't know if he was the baker, but he had a key and he went round to heat them up.

"That was my job for the day, bringing back pies and bridies for all the players. The subs were even eating them in the dugout.

"We lost the game 2-1 and Wee Jim wasn't too happy. Half the players couldn't stand up. They had been drinking all night. We were pished out of our minds."

"I don't think I played..." says McAlpine, hesitantly. "But I was so bevvied that I've no idea. I do remember Wee Jim asking at half time if anyone wanted to come off and everyone put their hand up."

Hegarty does remember surviving the 90 minutes, even if the details are sketchy. "There were one or two thick heads and bleary eyes, but I don't think anyone would begrudge us," he says.

"I dunno how we got on, to be honest… but I don't think we did particularly well. Just like the game the previous day, it seemed to go on for ever."