CURRY is strictly off the menu in the Dixon household.
Raspberry leaf tea and cod liver oil are on the banned substances list too, as the 28-year-old adheres to every old wives tale going in an attempt to prevent the first senior final of his career co-inciding with the early arrival of his second child. Dixon's wife Stef is due this coming Wednesday, the date of the Scottish Cup quarter final replay at Celtic Park, for which he is happily suspended. But he is eligible for Hampden today, where part of his cup final experience is sure to involve anxious glances toward his pregnant wife in the stands, who will be chaperoned by his father, and United's player liaison manager Andy MacGregor, who will be in charge of his phone for the day.
"All I am really worried about at the moment is making sure my wife is looked after by somebody - because she will only have four days till her due date," said the United left back, who already has one son, Lucas. "As long as somebody is with her just in case something happens, that is all that matters. I don't want hear a big loud scream from the stand, someone holding my number up and saying 'would Paul Dixon please come to reception, your wife is giving birth'."
After a week of farcical goings on in the SFA disciplinary department, Dixon's red card for a supposedly deliberate handball in the harum scarum Scottish Cup meeting between these teams at Tannadice last Sunday was the only one which still stands, but even that seemed rather harsh. The 28-year-old muses, and hopes, that some kind of higher power may be at work.
"I've contemplated on my red card, that it is somebody from above telling me I need to be somewhere else on Wednesday night," he said. "But it was just a fly-away thought in my head. You never know with babies, they can come any time."
Fate is certainly playing a mysterious hand when it comes to the player's dalliance with cup glory. He had been a major contributor to the Tannadice club's triumphant Scottish Cup run in 2010 until he broke his toe and was unable to participate in the final. Compensation for that misfortune - and lack of a winners' medal - should arrive today, when he participates in a cup final despite having played no part in getting the club to this stage, arriving from Huddersfield on deadline day a matter of hours after his team-mates had booked their place at this stage with a semi-final win against Aberdeen.
"I played in pretty much every round - apart from the final," recalled Dixon of 2010. "I went to the game - I was there with my big boot on because I had a broken toe. I had done some oxygen treatment, thinking that I would give myself some form of a chance to get back fit but I had a scan the week before and I was a million miles away. The bone hadn't even started to knit together yet, so there was no danger of me making it.
"I got on the park afterwards and I felt part of it then," he added. "But once I came in again and all the boys were in the dressing room, popping the champagne, and drinking it out of the cup, I sat down and it hit me that I wasn't really part of the day. It was hard to take. Myself, Darren Dods, and Damian Casalinuovo, all three of us, whether it was injury or suspension, didn't play in the final but we contributed to the cup win. It would be nice to win it on Sunday, and get a medal."
It may be his first final, but Dixon has no shortage of Hampden experience to speak of - even if, with former Queen's Park youngsters Aidan Connolly and Blair Spittal around, pedigree in the national stadium is a rather devalued commodity. For his part, Dixon played for United's city rivals Dundee in a 3-0 Scottish Cup semi-final reverse to Gretna ["that was definitely one to forget," he groans] as was an agonising semi-final defeat in this competition to Celtic in January 2009. That match was decided in the Parkhead side's favour when Willo Flood, who would depart for Celtic the very next day, missed his second penalty in an 11-10 shoot-out.
Then there are the three Scotland appearances which he will forever have on his resume. Part of Craig Levein's very first international squad, he featured in a couple of home draws against Serbia and Macedonia in the Autumn of 2012, but has barely had a look in since.
"I was happy with my contribution in the three games that I played," Dixon said. "It was three unbeaten and if I never play for Scotland again so be it. I can hold my head up high at the end of my career and say I've done it. As long as I am a professional footballer then I am available for Scotland and want to play for Scotland. Maybe last season at Huddersfield I felt I was playing well enough to earn a call up personally but it is the manager's decision and if he doesn't pick me then so be it."
There has been only one Celtic v Dundee United League Cup final in history and it came in November 1997, a morale boosting win for Wim Jansen's evolving Celtic side which went on to break Rangers' epoch-defining efforts for ten league wins in a row. In the Parkhead team which won 3-0 that day were a certain Jackie McNamara, and late substitute Simon Donnelly. Darren Jackson, the club's coach, was also at the club back then, although he missed out as he was undergoing surgery to heal a brain condition called hydrocephalus.
The trio have proved an effective triumvirate at Tannadice and Donnelly feels that silverware today would be the culmination of it all. "I was rested the week before and Andy Thom scored two and started the final," he said. "I was gutted to miss it.
"Darren signed at the start of that season," Donnelly added. "I'd known of him through playing against him before that and he wasn't the most popular guy to play against! Darren was a lot older than Jackie and I, obviously! The two of us had been pals, coming through the Under 21s. But the friendship has grown over the years and we're enjoying our work together here. We came together at Celtic and it's one of those wee quirks of fate that we're now here at Dundee United preparing to face Celtic in a League Cup final."
