The Silence of the Marrs

Last updated : 19 September 2004 By Disgruntled Dee
Not since Hannibal Lecter sneered at Agent Starling for the first time........ would have made a good start to this piece, if only there was a link to Dundee FC in it somewhere.

Sadly the fear in the film comes nowhere near the dread in every Dees heart as they see whats happening at Dens Park these days.
Poor fare on the park, resources stretched, Dee4Life having to run the catering and people staying away in their droves because the ticket prices are just too high.

Over on the official site Peter Marr has replied to a thread about Dundee FC going part time. He is quoted as saying that its never been discussed. Well thats OK then we can all sleep easy. Except that going into administration was a surprise, freeing all the star players was a surprise and this seasons gate prices were a surprise.
We don't hear much from Mssrs Marr these days, and that in itself is a worry for most Dundee fans who would like to know whats going on within the club. The Kenny Cameron saga is a prime example. Let him go, bring him back, let him go again. Is this the kind of thing we should be seeing at Dens? No of course it's not.

The Marrs shouldn't shoulder all the blame, just most of it, since they are only the latest in a line of Dundee owners that include the infamous Angus Cook and the late Ron Dixon (has it been proved hes dead?). Individuals will judge where the Marrs sit in the grand scheme of blame but for this Dee its pretty near the top of the pile.

The neat conjuring trick of getting Dundee into this mess and then charging the real fans to get us out of it has never sat easily with me. The Marrs personal commitment to the cause varies widely on who you listen to but can be guesstimated at anything between zero pence and £6million. We will probably never know.

What is certain though is that the current situation cannot continue where loyal Dees can't afford to go to games, or take their kids with them. That's short termism in the extreme.

The reality of this must be faced very soon. Either the ticket prices go down or the fans will not turn up. It may mean a lesser standard of player on the park but most Dees were agreed that any Dundee FC playing at any standard was better than none at all. Relegation this year is a very real possibility but it may be something the club can never fully recover from.
I do not subscribe to the theory that this would be the disaster that many people believe. Part time football may indeed be the way forward after all it works for many continental clubs that are bigger than us.
In fact people should think back to the early days of admin where Div 3 football was a definite option. Holding our own as a part time team in Div 1 may not be aspirational but its certainly a realistic vision of where we might be in the near future.

So people, what do we want to see happening? Well for now why not write an email in to us here at dundeemad@hotmail.com and we'll put your views in this section. We could then gather all the comments and send them in to Dens Park for the powers that be to read.

We cannot allow the Marrs to continue saying nothing or we will lose our club without even being told it's happening. The uproar caused by the possible move to Tannadice only happenend because the story got out. It was very nearly a done deal before anyone had heard anything about it. Can we allow this to happen again? Of course not.

Lets get Hannibal out of the mask and speaking to the public. If this doesn't happen our club will be eaten alive.