DUNDEE UNITED are rightly seen as one of the biggest clubs in the Scottish game but their roll of honour makes for a fairly brief compilation.

It took until December 1979 and their 70th anniversary for the Tannadice club to finally win something - a League Cup triumph over Aberdeen - and even despite the remarkable strides forward taken during the Jim McLean era they picked up silverware just twice more in the 1980s. Since then they have added just two more trophies, finally breaking their Scottish Cup hoodoo in 1994 then winning the same competition again in 2010. By way of comparison, Jackie McNamara won 10 trophies during his playing days, twice the total of the club he now manages.

McNamara knows his history. United may now be expected to feature regularly at the top end of the SPFL Premiership and reach the latter stages of cup competitions but it is still a big jump from being competitive to looking out the phone number for the open-top bus company. Pictures from that sunny weekend in 2010 - when United beat Ross County 3-0 in the final - that showed players, management and supporters milking every last drop of the celebrations were evidence enough that winning things still matters hugely to the Tannadice club and everyone associated with them.

It is why McNamara knows any opportunities to deliver success must be readily seized upon as they prepare to face Aberdeen in this afternoon's first League Cup semi-final at Hampden.

"The chance to win trophies doesn't come around all that often so you need to grasp it," said the manager. "Last season, after Celtic had been knocked out, we didn't do that. Scottish football has changed a lot in the last four or five years and the gulf hasn't become as big as it possibly should have. It's still there in terms of budgets but, when it comes to quality, it's not as big as it should be.

"We're looking forward to the semi-final for a variety of reasons. We were at Hampden for the Scottish Cup semi-final two years ago when Celtic edged us out 4-3 and we've reached another semi-final and a final since then.

"It's a great environment to play in and everyone should enjoy that. I'm sure that every kid still dreams of playing and scoring at Hampden in a cup final so the big thing for us on Saturday is to get the win which will take us there."

Aberdeen are expected to have around two-thirds of the support inside Hampden today but McNamara is not unduly perturbed by that.

"Aberdeen have fantastic backing, they're a one-team city and have a backing because of what they achieved last year and the job Derek [McInnes] has done there. It's a bit less for us because we have two teams in the city and semi-finals have not been the most supported. But we still have a healthy crowd coming down and hopefully we can send them back up the road happy. Then we'll have greater numbers for the final."