Herald Scotland's sports team trawls through the archives to bring you the best stories from yesteryear
Herald Scotland's sports team trawls through the archives to bring you the best stories from yesteryear
Andy Rolland, Dundee United's long-serving full back, is in trouble with the Tannadice side for breaking a club rule and putting his family before his profession. The fact that Rolland has moved house 24 miles is at the root of the trouble.
Rolland, unhappy staying in Dundee, has been allocated a council house in Glenrothes after being on the waiting list for three years. He has accepted the allocation, despite the fact that it was written into each United player's contract that he must live in Dundee or the suburbs.
The player, who 10 years ago joined United from Cowdenbeath for £10,000, has been living with his wife and two children in the Whitfield area of the city, but has decided to move back to his native Fife for the sake of his family.
"We have never really liked living in the area and my wife, who has been ill recently, is expecting our third child. I must make this move into a better environment for the sake of the family," Rolland said.
"All I know at the moment is that I have been suspended by the club."
The ruling that United players must live in the Dundee area came into force in 1971 when Jim McLean took over as manager of the club in succession to Jerry Kerr.
Fifteen of the present staff of 28 full-timers were outsiders who had to move into the area. These include Tom McAdam, the club's recent signing from Dumbarton. At first McAdam turned down the move because he did not want to live in Dundee, but later agreed.
Jim McLean was keeping silent yesterday, waiting until he knew for sure that Rolland had moved house. The player, in fact, "flitted" to Glenrothes late yesterday afternoon.
Rolland, who is 33, is due a benefit from the club next year, but is obviously willing to sacrifice that. The only solution would appear to be to let the player go to another club.
I understand that moves are already afoot in that direction ... moves that would allow Rolland to play for one of the Fife clubs with a player moving to Tanandice in part exchange.
Celtic, who travel to Tynecastle on Saturday week to meet Hearts in a premier league match, have been told that the kick-off will be brought forward to 1pm. The Tynecastle floodlights are faulty and the new kick-off time was agreed after consultations with Edinburgh police.
Hearts' home match against Motherwell tomorrow will have a 2pm start, but the earlier time for the Celtic game is because Scotland meet Australia in a rugby international at Murrayfield on the same day. The rugby kicks off at 2.15 and the staggered times are to avoid traffic congestion.
Meanwhile, Celtic face the prospect of being without Kenny Dalglish, their captain, for tomorrow's match against Dundee United at Tanandice. The international forward missed training yesterday because of a groin injury sustained in Tuesday's game at Birmingham.
Dalglish could do only light work yesterday, but he has two days before Tannadice and will be given every chance to get fully fit again.
Rangers, who face Dundee at Ibrox tomorrow, will almost certainly bring in Martin Henderson to replace Derek Parlane, who broke a collar bone at Easter Road last week. Henderson has been a substitute for the past three weeks, but now looks all set to make his second full appearance of the season.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article