The football season may have ended in Dundee with Sunday's derby but for at least one of those involved it will be good to know there was still plenty to chew on.

Lifelong loyalties being what they are it was a bitingly painful experience for more of us with Dark Blue loyalties than Jim McAlister, a 3-0 victory for United offering a particularly acute reminder of their dominance in this fixture throughout my adolescent and adult lifetime, since it mirrored the outcome just up the road the day the city rivals met in the League Cup final.

It could have been different. My grand-father regularly took me to Tannadice around the time white shirts rimmed with black were giving way to tangerine, letting me witness the debuts of the likes of Davie Narey and Andy Gray and serve notice of the insightful analysis to be offered in later years by claiming the former would never be as good as Jackie Copeland and deeming the latter 'useless'.

My heart was won over, however once a lad named Martin Begg gave me a cravat-style Dundee scarf which was out-dated even then, the first time he, David Petrie, our St Mary's Forebank school-mate and I persuaded strangers to sneak us in under the Dens Park turnstiles.

John Duncan and Jocky Scott were the first heroes to be replaced in affections in ensuing years by Gordon Strachan, Billy Pirie, Eric Sinclair, George 'Zico' McGeachie, Tommy Coyne and Keith Wright as, in secondary schooldays, captain Kev and I sipped whisky on the terracing and, thereafter, big daft Brian and I regularly sought consolation in Hawkhill bars following derby defeats which included that grim December afternoon in 1981 when we got snowed on as the Elephant Man and Luggy piled on the agony.

Throughout there had to be grudging admiration for rivals who, with the imperious Narey - always superior to the more vaunted Alan Hansen - the best of their fine side, would enjoy considerable domestic success, as well as maintaining the club's astonishing 100 per cent record of winning every match it has played against Barcelona in European competition. Even before he became such an irritant on our TV screens, hearing Dundee accents chant "what a waste of money" at Gary Lineker was profoundly satisfying.

This past season was special, though, perhaps even unique and good for both as, at different stages, they exceeded expectations, United challenging for all three trophies beyond New Year, Dundee producing decent runs in early season, then ahead of the split to get into the top six. Yet we are still left to wonder if they capitalised fully on the opportunity, albeit at least partly through no fault of their own.

This was the first time the meeting of the Dundee sides has ever been the top division's biggest derby, the Highland rivalry lacking tradition while this season's Glasgow version was an obvious mismatch in terms of resources. However unprecedented interest in the Championship meant that, given the central belt orientation of the mainstream Scottish media, Edinburgh's version still drew more attention.

With Hearts and Hibs now separated once more another chance to capitalise could yet emerge next season, but with it now looking likelier than not that Old Firm hostilities will be renewed on a regular basis that may be that forever.

It is not just Dundee's teams that should be considering whether the most has been made of Rangers' absence by way of re-defining the competitiveness and consequent attractiveness of Scottish football, though.

To be among only 6000 or so at McDiarmid Park on a fine day in the August of the year the home team won their first ever Scottish Cup and visitors Aberdeen had claimed a major trophy for the first time in close to 20 years; even moreso to be at Dens when just 240 travelled from Inverness to see their side secure European football for the first time, was disappointing.

More encouragingly, though, Scottish clubs are increasingly turning to youth which is the greatest benefit of having been forced to understand the need to live within their means.

On which note, amidst some murmurings of concern about the money being spent as Paul Hartley rebuilds his Dundee squad, when Blair Spittal - one of the posse of teenagers in United's starting eleven - left the field on Sunday after scoring a fine goal, he was replaced, three days after my daughter's 17th birthday, by Ali Coote, who is a month younger than her.

Once more admiration of United's methods is due and is offered... through gritted teeth!

And Another Thing

Played 40, won 28, drawn 4, lost 8: the end of season league record of a man worthy of manager-of-the-year awards either side of the border.

It is impossible to over-state Alex Neil's achievements in 2014/15, first with Hamilton Accies, the most enjoyable team to watch in Scotland's Premiership until, after a 5-0 thrashing of Motherwell in the New Year derby, he departed to transform Norwich's season, claiming another epic derby win in the play-off semi-finals, then winning Monday's 'money match'.

At just 33 years old yet another lad from Lanarkshire, with all its mining associations, heads fearlessly into the unknown with Canaries for company having ensured that one more season has ended with a Scottish manager showing the braggarts and bullies in British football's top flight how it's done.