The Day They Knocked Down The Palais

Derek Dougan (Jan 20, 1938 - June 24, 2007).

Derek Dougan is dead!
Who is/was Derek Dougan? Well, for those with less than a passing interest in association football, Alexander Derek Dougan used to play for, among others, Aston Villa and, more famously, Wolverhampton Wanderers, was a former captain of Northern Ireland, a high-profile players' spokesman and latterly a TV pundit.
The Doog, as he was known to legions of fans in his heyday (the '70s), was a tall, lean, fearsome and in his early days skin-headed striker who formed a partnership "up front" at Wolves with a fellow striker by the name of John Richards. Together they scored copiously and The Doog in particular became a central part of Black Country culture in the '70s, along with Slade, Parker coats, "bovver" boots and Brew XI.
I knew The Doog. I spoke to him quite a lot when he started frequenting my then local in the 1980s and, come to think of it, I bumped into him in the village as recently as a week ago last Saturday when he was limping, using a walking stick and complaining that his foot was knackered.
As a cub reporter I once interviewed him at length about a disastrous take-over of Wolves of which he had been the figurehead and the financial clout had been provided by two brothers - the Bhatti brothers. I remember he answered none of the questions, being an expert at changing the subject and bluffing, and so I changed tack and started asking him what he did for a living now that his playing days were over. I still have a tape of that interview (I wasn't confident enough of my shorthand in those days) and I can be heard asking the same question about a dozen times over the course of an hour-long talk. I never got an answer to that seemingly simple question either. The responses were along the lines of "business", "all sorts of things", "a bit of this and a bit of that", "fingers in many pies" and "it's too difficult to explain."
Shortly after that interview he became a figurehead for another financial venture. He was the face of "The Duncan Edwards Appeal", an appeal aimed at building a sports therapy clinic in honour of that more legendary Black Country boy and Manchester United star Duncan Edwards, who died in the Munich air disaster of 1958. After a year or so of operation, the appeal fund's books were examined and it turned out that something like £1.50 had been raised for the new clinic, the remaining thousands which had come from a generous public having gone on "expenses".
In later years, it has to be said, he became a frequently inebriated, loud-mouthed and often aggressive bore who was a little too fond of using his fists, particularly, and headline hittingly, in matters of the heart.
I have never and would never support Wolves. My allegiances lie in the city of lace and Brian Clough. I have many friends, however, to whom The Doog was an idol. Although they are now happily married, middle class businessmen in their 50s, some still have their Parker coats from those heady days of his reign on the pitch, with a bullseye sewn on the back and the words "The Doog" displayed prominently above. While Dougan was no hero of mine, he was an important part of my childhood and has just become yet another large wedge of that particular iceberg to fall off and go crashing into the depths. I now know how one of my REAL heroes, Ray Davies, felt when he sang: "The day they knocked down the Palais, part of my childhood died, just died."
That's the trouble with heroes, you see. You should never meet them - it's always a big disappointment. I live by my journalistic motto on matters such as this, a motto allegedly first attributed to legendary Wild West gunfighter and Marshall Wyatt Earp. When asked, as he lay dying, to tell the truth about what really happened at the notorious Gunfight At The OK Corall he simply replied: "Hang the truth, tell the legend."
So, as The Doog is busy winging his way up or down at the moment and I try hard to concentrate on his legend, not his life, the let downs which come about by meeting your heroes can go to Grantham.