Billy Dodds Player Profile

Biography

When Dundee manager Gordon Wallace paid Chelsea £75,000 to sign Billy Dodds in the summer of 1989 he could hardly have been expecting that he had signed the player who would become Dundee’s top scorer in the next four seasons and be the man to score a hat-trick to win Dundee’s first national cup competition in 17 years.

The task of replacing Tommy Coyne looked an arduous one but Wallace came up with a gem of a striker in Billy Dodds who would score 17 more goals for The Dee than ‘The Cobra’, and strike up a partnership with Coyne’s old mate Keith Wright that yielded 68 goals in only two years.

Born in New Cumnock in Ayrshire on February 5th 1969, Billy signed for Dundee after a successful season in Chelsea’s reserves where he scored over 30 goals. However, his first team appearances were restricted to just three at Stamford Bridge but he showed his potential during a loan spell at Partick Thistle in 1987/88 where he scored 9 goals in 30 league appearances.

Dodds made his debut for Dundee on the opening day of the 1989/90 season when he came off the bench to replace Duncan Campbell and made an immediate impact when Dunfermline’s Jimmy Nichol was sent off for bringing him down.

However, after turning up late it took Billy a couple of months to make his second appearance and did so at St Mirren on October 4th and marked his promotion to the starting line up with a goal in a 3-2 defeat.

He did enough however to stake a claim for the number ten shirt and was an ever present for the rest of the season in which he finished as Dundee’s top scorer with 13 goals.

That season finished disastrously in bottom place in a ten team Premier Division so Billy’s second season was going to be spent in the First Division. As favourites to go straight back up Dundee started the season well and Dodds scored three goals in the first four matches as Dundee hit the top.

That season was the 100th anniversary of the Scottish Football League and to mark the occasion they introduced a new cup competition called the B&Q Centenary Cup which was open to all clubs outside of the Premier Division. Dundee started with a bye in the first round before dispatching Alloa Athletic at Recreation Park with Dodds scoring twice in a 5-3 win.

The quarter-finals took Dundee back to Fife where they had drawn 1-1 with Raith Rovers in the league ten days before and this time Billy was the hero when his extra time strike from outside the box was enough to knock the Kirkcaldy side out.

A 2-0 win in the semi away to Kilmarnock was enough to send Dundee through to the final on Remembrance Sunday where they would meet Ayr United at Fir Park, Motherwell and the Dark Blues carried a large support amongst the 11,506 crowd.

They were silenced however when Ian McAllister put Ayr ahead on 13 minutes but gradually Dundee took control with Colin West causing havoc on the right and were awarded a penalty when the flying winger was downed soon after the break.

Dodds, who had missed a penalty against Meadowbank the previous week, sent David Purdie the wrong way and 20 minutes later, the flaxen haired striker put Dundee ahead with a header from an inch perfect cross from ex-Chelsea team mate West.

Dundee continued to press but against the run of play a long range shot by David Smith was deflected high past Tom Carson in the Dundee goal to put Ayr back on level terms.

There was no further scoring so the game went to extra time and as Dundee continued to press, they looked the more likely to avoid the game going to penalties. And so it was with only five minutes left. Purdie made a brave save at the feet of Keith Wright and when the ball spun free, Dodds was on hand to complete his hat-trick from the edge of the box and win the Centenary Cup for The Dee.

Billy grabbed the headlines as Dundee won their first national cup competition since 1973 when manager Gordon Wallace scored the winner to lift the League Cup and as a one off competition Dundee were allowed to keep the glass trophy which resides in the Dens Park boardroom today.

Billy finished the season with 22 goals in all competitions, piping his strike partner Keith Wright by one goal but the season ended in disappointment as Dundee failed to win promotion by one point.

There was joy however 12 months later when the First Division championship was won with Billy scoring 19 goals on the way to the title, finishing as top scorer again. He now wanted to prove himself in the Premier Division after 33 goals in the second tier and did so when he finished top scorer for the 4th time in a row with 18 goals to help Dundee finish five points above the drop zone.

There were plenty of highlights in the first season back in the top flight as flamboyant manager Simon Stainrod led Dundee to famous victories over Dundee United and Rangers as well as keeping them up. Having failed to won any of their first three league games, Dundee took on league champions Rangers at Dens and against all the odds recorded a memorable 4-3 win with Billy scoring twice, including the winner from the spot after one of the softest penalties ever awarded against either of the Old Firm.

Billy kept his nerve from the spot again a month later at Tannadice when he netted the winner in a 1-0 win over Dundee United to give himself five goals in five games since that Rangers win.

Dodds was often a thorn in The Arab’s side in his time at Dens, playing in two derby wins, scoring three times and had a good record also against both sides of the Old Firm, scoring six times and proving himself to be a big game player for The Dee.

The following season would prove to be Billy’s last at Dens as he was surprisingly sold to relegation rivals St Johnstone in January for a fee of £360,000 and when the fans and sponsors were upset that their star striker had been sold to a local rival, a number of them were invited to Dens to meet with manager Jim Duffy so he could explain his decision.

On the day he made his debut for St Johnstone, Billy found time to attend the funeral of Dundee supporter Andrew De Vries who had been tragically killed while working in America and attended the service before playing his first game for the Saints at night.

He left the club as the season’s top scorer up to that point and while the money from his sale was used to sign George Shaw and Gerry Britton, it was still a huge blow to see their hero leave at such a critical time.

Within 12 months of joining St Johnstone, Billy was on the move up the east coast to Aberdeen before returning to the City of Discovery to join Dundee United after four years at Pittodrie.

A subsequent move to Rangers in 1999 saw Billy win all three major honours in Scotland and by that time was well established in the Scotland squad for whom he scored 7 goals in 26 internationals.

A move back to Dundee United in 2003 saw Billy join Gordon Chisholm’s coaching staff in 2005 and in 2010 Billy returned to Dens as Chisholm’s number 2 after working together at Queen of the South when they left Tannadice.

Billy lost his job when Dundee entered administration for a second time in October 2010 and was number two at Ross County and part of Jim McIntyre’s backroom staff when they won the League Cup in March 2016. He was slated to come back to Dens in 2019 as part of McIntyre’s backroom staff but a backlash from fans, still upset in the way his voted against the CVA in 2011, made the club have a change of heart

Billy always gave 1000% in a Dark Blue shirt scoring vital goals and a cup final hat-trick and a strike rate of one goal in every 2.5 games puts him in the top 15 leading scorers in the club’s history.