Robert Scott Dobie (born 10 October 1978) is a Scottish former
footballer
A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...
who played as a
striker.
Although born in England, Dobie played six times for
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
at full international level in 2002. During a 16-year career he played for
Carlisle United,
Clydebank,
West Bromwich Albion
West Bromwich Albion Football Club () is an English professional football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football. The club was formed in 1878 and has pl ...
,
Millwall
Millwall is a district on the western and southern side of the Isle of Dogs, in east London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies to the immediate south of Canary Wharf and Limehouse, north of Greenwich and Deptford, eas ...
,
Nottingham Forest
Nottingham Forest Football Club is an association football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. Nottingham Forest was founded in 1865 and have been playing their home games at the City Ground, on the banks of the River Tren ...
,
St Johnstone,
Bradford City
Bradford City Association Football Club is an English professional football club in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The team competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system and are currently managed by Mark Hughes.
...
and
York City
York City Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of York, North Yorkshire, England. As of the 2022–23 season, the team compete in the National League, at the fifth tier of the English football league sys ...
.
Club career
Carlisle United
Born in
Workington
Workington is a coastal town and civil parish at the mouth of the River Derwent on the west coast in the Allerdale borough of Cumbria, England. The town was historically in Cumberland. At the 2011 census it had a population of 25,207.
Locat ...
, Cumbria, Dobie joined
Carlisle United as an apprentice in June 1995, turning professional on 10 May 1997.
While at Carlisle, it was Dobie's goalbound header that was parried into the path of Carlisle goalkeeper
Jimmy Glass, who scored with the last kick of the final game of the
1998–99 season, preserving Carlisle's
Football League status and
relegating Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to:
People
* Scarborough (surname)
* Earl of Scarbrough
Places Australia
* Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth
* Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong
* Scarborough, Queensland, su ...
. During
2000–01, Dobie attracted interest from other clubs, with Carlisle
manager
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business.
Management includes the activities ...
Ian Atkins
Ian Leslie Atkins (born 16 January 1957) is an English football manager, scout, and former player. Atkins amassed over 300 appearances for Shrewsbury Town, the club where he began his career. He also made appearances in the Football League for ...
claiming that the player could be worth as much as £2 million in the transfer market.
West Bromwich Albion
Dobie was transferred to
West Bromwich Albion
West Bromwich Albion Football Club () is an English professional football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football. The club was formed in 1878 and has pl ...
on 6 July 2001 for an initial £150,000 fee, with another £50,000 being paid once he reached 25 appearances for his new club. He made his Albion début against
Walsall
Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre in the West Midlands County, England. Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located north-west of Birmingham, east of Wolverhampton and from Lichfield.
Walsall is th ...
on 11 August 2001. His first goal for the club came on 22 August 2001 in a
League Cup
In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...
tie at
Cambridge United
Cambridge United Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Cambridge, England. They compete in EFL League one , the 3rd tier of the English football league system. The club is based at the Abbey Stadium on Ne ...
, when he lobbed the opposition goalkeeper from 30 yards out. He enjoyed an impressive September, scoring his first league goal for Albion in a 4–0 win over
Manchester City, and thus commencing a scoring streak of eight goals in seven games. However he struggled to find the net after that, not scoring again until February. Nonetheless, he finished the season as the club's top scorer with 11 league goals, 13 in total. His performances helped Albion get promoted to the
Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...
in
2001–02. Two of his goals came on 16 March 2002 in a 3–0 win at
Sheffield United
Sheffield United Football Club is a professional football club in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . They are nicknamed "the Blades" due to Sheffield's history of cutlery production. The team have played home games at ...
; the game was dubbed the "
Battle of Bramall Lane" as it was the only game in English professional football to be abandoned due to a team having insufficient players left on the pitch.
In the summer he handed in a transfer request, reportedly because he wanted a wage increase after breaking into the Scotland national side. Albion refused to sell the player however, and eventually Dobie was rewarded with an improved four-year contract. Dobie was Albion's first Premier League substitute when he replaced
Danny Dichio
Daniele Salvatore Ernest Dichio (born 19 October 1974) is an English retired professional footballer and coach.
Dichio scored the first goal in Toronto FC history against the Chicago Fire on 12 May 2007. Later in that same game he became the ...
in the opening game against Manchester United at Old Trafford. He scored just five times in Albion's first Premiership season, although his strike against
Tottenham Hotspur
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English football. The team has playe ...
on 8 December 2002 was named 'Goal of the Week' by the
BBC Sport
BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC television, radio and online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadcasting the sport live or alongside flag ...
website. Albion were relegated, but Dobie again won promotion with them in
2003–04, helping the club bounce back to the top-flight at the first attempt.
Millwall
With the likes of
Kanu and
Robert Earnshaw ahead of him in the West Brom pecking order, Dobie struggled to gain first team action at the start of
2004–05, and on 8 November 2004 moved to Millwall in a deal worth "up to" £750,000. Owing to a sell-on clause, his former club Carlisle received at least £37,500 from the deal.
Nottingham Forest
On 25 February 2005 he joined
Nottingham Forest
Nottingham Forest Football Club is an association football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. Nottingham Forest was founded in 1865 and have been playing their home games at the City Ground, on the banks of the River Tren ...
in a £525,000 move from Millwall, signing a three-and-a-half-year deal. His Forest career got off to a slow start, as he scored only one goal in 12 appearances. He then started to find his form, but a series of injuries, including a hip injury that required ground-breaking surgery in America, checked his progress, meaning he scored just two goals in the
2005–06 season.
At the start of the
2006–07 season new manager
Colin Calderwood
Colin Calderwood (born 20 January 1965) is a Scottish professional football manager and former player. He is the assistant manager at Northampton Town.
As a player, he was a centre-back who notably played in the Premier League for Tottenham Hots ...
expressed his faith in Dobie and said his career was safe at Forest. But injury again slowed his progress, after suffering a thigh injury on his comeback game, forcing him down the pecking order behind
Grant Holt
Grant Holt (born 12 April 1981) is an English former professional footballer who is currently a scout at West Ham United.
During his football career, Holt played for a number of non-league and professional clubs, making nearly 100 league appeara ...
,
Junior Agogo and
Nathan Tyson
Nathan Tyson (born 4 May 1982) is an English professional footballer who plays as a forward for Grantham Town. He represented the England under-20 team in February 2003.
A pacey, left-footed forward, he began his career at Reading, where he ...
. Most of Dobie's appearances in 2006–07 were from the substitutes bench. His only goal that season came in the 2006–07 League One play off semi-final against
Yeovil
Yeovil ( ) is a town and civil parish in the district of South Somerset, England. The population of Yeovil at the last census (2011) was 45,784. More recent estimates show a population of 48,564. It is close to Somerset's southern border with ...
. His header from a corner, put Forest 3–1 up in the tie, but they ended up losing 5–4 on aggregate after extra time.
Dobie began the
2007–08 campaign as a lone striker against
AFC Bournemouth but was quickly dropped to the bench, and then cut from the matchday squad altogether, although he returned as a substitute in Forest's 2–0 win at
Port Vale
Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in . Vale are the only English Football League club not to be named after a place; their name being a reference to the valley o ...
.
Return to Carlisle
On 23 January 2008, Dobie returned to Carlisle United, now in League One, where he signed a two-and-a-half-year contract after moving for a nominal fee. He was on the losing side in a play-off semi-final for the second year running when Carlisle were defeated 3–2 on aggregate by
Leeds United
Leeds United Football Club is a professional football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire in England. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of England's football league system, and plays its home matches at Elland Road ...
, whose team included Dobie's half-cousin
Paul Huntington
Paul David Huntington (born 17 September 1987) is an English professional footballer with over 500 appearances who plays as a centre-back for Carlisle United.
Club career Newcastle United
Huntington joined Newcastle United Academy on 1 July ...
. Dobie received the first red card of his career in a 0–0 draw against
Leyton Orient
Leyton Orient Football Club is a professional football club based in Leyton, East London, England, who compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. They are the second oldest football club in London to play at a profession ...
in August 2008.
St Johnstone
Dobie signed for
Scottish Premier League club
St Johnstone on a one-year contract in May 2010.
Dobie had previously played alongside Saints manager
Derek McInnes
Derek John McInnes (born 5 July 1971) is a Scottish professional football manager and former player who is the manager of Scottish Premiership club Kilmarnock. He featured prominently for Greenock Morton, Rangers, West Bromwich Albion and Dund ...
at West Brom.
He played just four games for the Scottish outfit. Dobie signed for
League Two
The English Football League Two (often referred to as League Two for short or Sky Bet League Two for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League Two from 2004 until 2016) is the third and lowest division of the English Football Lea ...
side
Bradford City
Bradford City Association Football Club is an English professional football club in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The team competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system and are currently managed by Mark Hughes.
...
in February 2011 on a loan deal until the end of the season.
York City
After more than a year without a club, Dobie signed for newly promoted League Two club
York City
York City Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of York, North Yorkshire, England. As of the 2022–23 season, the team compete in the National League, at the fifth tier of the English football league sys ...
on a three-month contract on 30 August 2012.
However, he was released a month later on 28 September 2012 after failing to break into the team.
International career
Dobie represented
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
at international level.
He made his debut in a 4–1 defeat away to
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...
on 16 May 2002, in which he scored Scotland's only goal.
He was
capped
In sport, a cap is a player's appearance in a game at international level. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of rugby football and association football. In the ea ...
six times by Scotland, all of these coming during 2002.
Career statistics
Club
International
International goals
:''Scores and results list Scotland's goal tally first.''
After football
After retiring from football, Dobie became a police officer. He is now an
Authorised Firearms Officer and
National Firearms Instructor, and has provided armed protection at
Merry Hill Shopping Centre
Merry Hill (formerly Westfield Merry Hill and The Merry Hill Shopping Centre) is a large shopping complex in Brierley Hill near Dudley, England. It was developed between 1985 and 1990, with several subsequent expansion and renovation project ...
in Dudley.
See also
*
List of Scotland international footballers born outside Scotland
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dobie, Scott
1978 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Workington
English footballers
Scottish footballers
Scotland international footballers
Association football forwards
Carlisle United F.C. players
Clydebank F.C. (1965) players
West Bromwich Albion F.C. players
Millwall F.C. players
Nottingham Forest F.C. players
St Johnstone F.C. players
Bradford City A.F.C. players
York City F.C. players
Premier League players
English Football League players
Scottish Premier League players
Scottish Football League players
English people of Scottish descent
Anglo-Scots
British police officers
Footballers from Cumbria