Tommy Coyne Player Profile

Biography

Coyne's first spell at Dens was short - barely lasting two years but it was certainly most illustrious, earning him legendary status which was recognised with his entry into the Dundee FC Hall of Fame in 2011.

When manager Jocky Scott asked him to cross 'The Great Divide' from Tannadice, there were a few eyebrows raised but he went on to form a lethal partnership with Keith Wright with a goals-to-game ratio barely matched in Dundee's history.

Born in Govan in Glasgow seven months after Dundee became Scottish League Champions, Tommy started his professional career with Clydebank where he made his debut in the 1981/82 season, scoring nine goals in thirty-one matches. Twenty-nine goals in the next season and a half persuaded Premier Division Champions Dundee United to part with £60,000 for his services but he never really hit form at Tannadice hitting the net only nine times in three years.

On the last day of the 1985/86 season, Coyne missed a penalty at Dens for The Arabs as The Dee won 1-0 but a few months later he made Dens Park his home when Jocky Scott parted with £75,000 for the twenty- four year old.

Jocky also splashed out £50,000 on Keith Wright from Raith Rovers a week earlier and immediately it looked like money well spent for both when the new strike force spearheaded Dundee to a 6-3 win over St. Mirren at home on Tommy's debut in December. Tommy had to wait until the New Year for his first goal in a Dundee shirt and it came on a waterlogged pitch at Bayview where Dundee met East Fife in the third round of the Scottish Cup. It was a crucial strike from Coyne as it proved to be the late equaliser which earned Dundee a replay where Dundee had no problem dispatching the Fife side 4-1 with Tommy scoring the third.

In between these two matches Coyne scored his first league goal away to his old club Clydebank and a goal in the next league match at Hamilton made it four strikes in four games to signal the start of Super Tommy's remarkable goal scoring record for the Club. Coyne and Wright were now terrorising Premier Division defenders on a weekly basis and earned themselves the nicknames of The Cobra and The Mongoose and in the Scottish Cup, Coyne lived up to his new nickname with deadly strikes which killed off the hopes of Meadowbank and Clydebank.

By the end of Tommy's first season at the Club, Coyne had scored his first Dundee hat-trick against Clydebank and in the last game of the campaign Tommy scored a penalty in a 7-3 win over Hamilton with those seven goals meaning Dundee had scored a remarkable 100 goals in all competitions.

Super Tommy finished his debut season with fifteen goals to make him two goals behind top scorer Graham Harvey's seventeen but he had played fourteen games less and had a strike rate of one goal in less than every two games.

The Cobra would start his second season with the Dark Blues in the same way he finished his first in fine goal scoring form and at the end of August scored four against Dunfermline at home in a 5-0 win.

In Dundee's next match, Coyne and Dundee got a chance for revenge for that Scottish Cup semi-final defeat to United when they met the Terrors in the League Cup quarter final at Dens in front of a capacity 19,724 crowd. With only six minutes on the clock, United took the lead through former Dee lain Ferguson but with just five left, Dundee took the tie into extra time when Tommy slid home a Tosh McKinlay cross.

Roared on by exuberant fans, Dundee now put United under severe pressure and five minutes into extra time, Dens erupted when The Mongoose finished off a superb move by the Cobra and Graham Harvey who had only been on the park two minutes. Dundee held on for a famous 2-1 win and Coyne had written himself into folklore with that equalising goal.

In November, Coyne inflicted more misery on The Arabs when he scored a brace in a 3-1 Derby win at Tannadice as the Dundee fans taunted their rivals by thanking them for giving them Tommy Coyne. In his time at Dens, Coyne would be a thorn in United's side scoring five goals, playing in three wins and five draws.

Just after that win at Tannadice, the goal-hungry partnership of Coyne and Wright netted nine goals in four days as the Dark Blues raced to spectacular away wins to Falkirk (6-0) and Morton (7-1) with Coyne scoring a hat-trick against the Greenock side.

By then, Coyne had now scored twenty-eight goals and when Dundee's New Year fixture was brought forward twenty-four hours to the 1st January, Tommy had the chance to grab the Daily Record's Golden Shot title ahead of Ally McCoist whose Rangers side were playing in the Old Firm Derby the following day.

The Golden Shot title was awarded to the first player to score thirty goals in all competitions in any division and Super Tommy grabbed the prize ahead of Super Ally with a brace against The Pars. To score thirty goals by New Year was a terrific achievement for Coyne and he now also in the running for the U.E.F.A. Golden Boot for Europe's top league scorer.

Ultimately however, Tommy would score thirty-three league goals to finish third and win the Bronze Boot, with the Golden Boot being won by Tanju Colak of Turkish club Galatasaray. Such was the interest in One of the wins on Hogmanay saw Tommy score a double in a 2-0 win over Aberdeen to give Dundee their first home win over The Dons since the opening day of the inaugural Premier Division in 1975. Coyne was again by then Dundee's top scorer and The Dee had already turned down a £750,000 bid from West Ham for The Cobra after Chairman Angus Cook had stated pre season that neither Coyne or Wright were for sale, even for a million pounds!

Dark Blue legend Gordon Wallace took over the reigns from Dundonian Smith in February 1989 and he felt there was already the basis of a reasonable side at Dens and wanted to build his side around Tommy Coyne. However within weeks of his arrival, Coyne was on his way to Celtic as a replacement for Frank McAvennie for a Dens record fee of £500,000 and he was leaving behind a legacy of sixty goals in 109 games, a ratio of one goal every 1.8 games.

Tommy took a couple of seasons to find his feet at Parkhead but in his third season again finished the Premier Division top goal scorer with eighteen goals in twenty-six games.

Coyne scored fifty-two goals in his four years at Celtic and was called up by the Republic of Ireland through his family connections and after a short spell at Tranmere he returned to Scotland in November 1993 to join Motherwell for £125,000.

Tommy scored fifty-nine goals in 132 games for the Steelmen and in 1994/95, he was again the Scottish Premier Division's top scorer to become the only player to achieve that with three different clubs.

Tommy also created his own piece of Motherwell history when he became the first 'Well player to play in a World Cup Finals in 1994 when he played in three of Ireland's four matches and in total he won twenty- two caps for the Republic, scoring six goals.

In the summer of 1998, Jocky Scott re-signed The Cobra for newly promoted Dundee and he was part of the side to achieve Dundee's highest ever Premier finish of fifth, equaling Dundee's highest league placing since they were Champions in 1962.

Tommy Coyne will always be fondly remembered by the Dark Blue support for his goal scoring exploits. In November 2010, Tommy returned to Dens Park as a guest and he showed his support for The Dee, joining the fans' protest at the Club's twenty-five point penalty from the Scottish League when he held aloft a red card on the pitch at half-time during the match against Partick Thistle.

Seeing him back on the hallowed turf brought back many a happy memory and the assembled Dees burst into the song that was sung to The Arabs in his time at Dens saying, Thank you very much for Tommy Coyne, thank you very much, thank you very, very, very much!"