46 Facts About Derek Dougan

Alexander Derek Dougan was a Northern Ireland international footballer, football manager, football chairman, pundit, and writer.

Derek Dougan was capped by Northern Ireland at schoolboy, youth, Amateur, and 'B' team level, before he won 43 caps in a 15-year career for the senior team from 1958 to 1973, scoring eight international goals and featuring in the 1958 FIFA World Cup.

Derek Dougan played in the Shamrock Rovers XI v Brazil exhibition match in July 1973, which he helped to organise.

Derek Dougan spent two summers in the United States playing for the club's sister teams, the Los Angeles Wolves and the Kansas City Spurs, who he helped to win the United Soccer Association and NASL International Cup respectively.

Derek Dougan retired in 1975, scoring 279 goals in 661 league and cup appearances across 18 seasons in the Football League.

Derek Dougan was appointed player-manager at Southern League Premier Division side Kettering Town in 1975, a position he retained for two years.

Derek Dougan negotiated the first shirt sponsorship deal in English football at the club.

Derek Dougan chaired the Professional Footballers' Association from 1970 to 1978, and helped to further players' rights and set up the first PFA player awards in 1974.

Derek Dougan stood as an independent politician in the Belfast East constituency in 1997 and later became involved in the UK Independence Party.

Alexander Derek Dougan was born in Belfast on 20 January 1938, the son of Jackie and Josie Dougan.

Derek Dougan's family were poor, and later in life Dougan joked that "on the street where I lived, if you paid your rent three weeks on the trot, the police used to come and see where you got the money from".

Derek Dougan trained with Linfield, but could not break into any of their junior teams.

Teammate Peter McParland later commented that "when Derek Dougan came to us at Aston Villa I think it was at a time when he was not taking the game particularly seriously".

Derek Dougan later admitted that "I had made a mistake in going to the Third Division when I was a First Division player".

In November 1968, Bill McGarry replaced Allen as manager, and Derek Dougan later described the seven years he spent playing for McGarry as "the most traumatic of my career".

Derek Dougan spent the summer of 1969 in the United States as the club again entered the American leagues, this time calling themselves the Kansas City Spurs and playing in the North American Soccer League, where they won the NASL International Cup.

Derek Dougan had a poor season, limited to just ten goals in 33 games due to injuries and an eight-week suspension, then the longest ban of the post-war era, for verbally abusing a linesman in a home defeat to Everton.

Derek Dougan was appointed player-manager at Southern League Premier Division side Kettering Town in 1975, and immediately set on former Wolves teammate Brian Thompson as his assistant.

Derek Dougan negotiated a four-figure shirt sponsorship with Kettering Tyres, which was the first such deal in England.

Derek Dougan helped to improve the career prospects of many of his players, particularly Billy Kellock, who went on to play over 250 games in the Football League after leaving Kettering in 1979.

Derek Dougan left the club after chairman John Nash resigned in June 1977.

Derek Dougan represented Northern Ireland at schoolboy, youth, amateur and 'B' level as a wing-half and centre-defender.

Derek Dougan had won nine caps before he joined Peterborough in 1962 when the drop to Third Division football left him out of international contention for the next three years.

Derek Dougan was named as captain when Terry Neill succeeded Billy Bingham as manager in 1971.

Derek Dougan made his final appearance for Northern Ireland on 14 February 1973 in a 1974 FIFA World Cup qualifier against Cyprus.

Derek Dougan won a total of 43 senior caps and scored eight goals in a 15-year international career.

An advocate of an All-Ireland soccer team, Derek Dougan was one of six Northern Ireland internationals to feature in the Shamrock Rovers XI v Brazil exhibition match in July 1973; the "Shamrock Rovers XI" was a pseudonym for an All-Ireland team, which featured Republic of Ireland internationals.

Meanwhile, Derek Dougan, who had helped organise the match, subsequently alleged that his involvement meant that he never played for Northern Ireland again.

Derek Dougan was a combative centre-forward who relied on his speed, strength and awareness to score and create goals.

Derek Dougan had an excellent left-foot and was described as "streetwise" and "crafty", but was not a great passer of the ball.

In 1967, Derek Dougan represented Leicester City on the television show Quizball.

Derek Dougan went on to host a half-hour show on BBC Radio Birmingham, which previewed the weekend's football.

Derek Dougan published a second autobiography, The Sash Derek Dougan Never Wore, in 1972.

Derek Dougan reprised his role in ITV's World Cup coverage for the 1974 FIFA World Cup, with Brian Clough and Jack Charlton replacing Crerand and McNab.

In 1976, Dougan assisted historian Percy M Young in producing On the Spot: Football as a Profession, a social history book that included anecdotes and insight from Dougan to complement Young's research.

Derek Dougan published a third autobiography in 1980, entitled Doog, which revealed his disdain for Bill McGarry.

Derek Dougan advocated the belief that players should control their own destiny and used his position as Chairman of the PFA to further players' rights.

Derek Dougan pushed for freedom of contract for players, and in 1978 accepted a compromise deal that allowed players to switch clubs at the end of their contracts, providing that the player's new club and old club could agree on a transfer fee, with a tribunal agreeing on a fee in cases where clubs could not agree.

Derek Dougan led as chairman and brought in the players' right to move, which was the frontrunner of Bosman.

Derek Dougan replaced him with former Wolves teammate Graham Hawkins.

Derek Dougan stood as an independent 'Former Captain NI Football Team' candidate for the East Belfast constituency in the 1997 UK general election, but got only 541 votes and finished seventh out of the nine candidates.

Derek Dougan was cleared of assaulting a Vietnam War veteran with a pool cue, who had been at the home with Patricia Thompson at the time of the alleged burglary incident.

An opinionated and driven man, his partner noted how Derek Dougan "loved a cause", and in his later years spent much of his time organising charity events and legal representation for retired footballers.

Derek Dougan separated from Jutta and spent the last three years of his life with Merlyn Humphreys.

Derek Dougan died on 24 June 2007 from a heart attack at his home in Wolverhampton, at the age of 69.

Derek Dougan was inducted into the Wolverhampton Wanderers Hall of Fame in 2010, alongside former teammate Kenny Hibbitt.