Douglas Cowie (1 May 1926 – 26 November 2021) was a Scottish

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 for

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

Greenock Morton Greenock Morton Football Club is a Scottish professional football club, which plays in the Scottish Championship. The club was founded as Morton Football Club in 1874, making it one of the oldest senior Scottish clubs. Morton was renamed Green ...

and the Scotland national team. He played initially as a

central defender In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

but later converted to a left half.

Club career

Signed for Dundee by manager George Anderson, Cowie went on to play 341 times for the club in the

Scottish Football League The Scottish Football League (SFL) was a league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 km south ...

alone, many of them as

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

. He was part of the Dundee side that won back-to-back

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 ...

s in 1951–52 and 1952–53, also played in the 1952 Scottish Cup Final and was a member of the squad that missed out on winning the League Championship by one point in the 1948–49 season. Cowie left Dundee in 1961 and had a two-year spell with

as a player-coach. He was

Raith Rovers Raith Rovers Football Club is a Scottish professional football club based in the town of Kirkcaldy, Fife. The club was founded in 1883 and currently competes in the Scottish Championship as a member of the Scottish Professional Football Leagu ...

manager for the 1963–64 season but left the

Kirkcaldy Kirkcaldy ( ; sco, Kirkcaldy; gd, Cair Chaladain) is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It is about north of Edinburgh and south-southwest of Dundee. The town had a recorded population of 49,460 in 2011, ...

club to rejoin the Morton coaching staff in the summer of 1964. He later worked at

Dundee United Dundee United Football Club is a Scottish professional football club based in the city of Dundee. The club name is usually abbreviated to Dundee United. Formed in 1909, originally as Dundee Hibernian, the club changed to the present name in 1 ...

in coaching and scouting capacities. On 3 April 2009, Cowie was inducted into Dundee's Hall of Fame.

International career

Cowie won all 20 of his Scotland

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

while with Dundee. He made his international debut against

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in April 1953. He was involved in Scotland's first two

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

appearances, playing both matches in

1954 Events January * January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany. * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The fir ...

and two of three matches in 1958; Scotland's 3–2 defeat to

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

at the 1958 World Cup was his final appearance for Scotland. He also appeared once for the Scotland B team and three times for the Scottish League representative team.

Death

Cowie died on 26 November 2021, at the age of 95. He was the last surviving player of the 1954 and 1958 Scottish World Cup teams.Dundee legend Doug Cowie: Oldest surviving Scotland internationalist, last link to storied era, 'best-ever, better than Billy Steel'
Alan Pattullo, ''The Scotsman'', 30 November 2021

References

External links

Profile at Dundee-Mad.co.uk
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cowie, Doug 1926 births 2021 deaths Scottish footballers Footballers from Aberdeen Association football central defenders Association football wing halves Scotland international footballers Scotland B international footballers 1954 FIFA World Cup players 1958 FIFA World Cup players Scottish Football League players Scottish Football League representative players Dundee F.C. players Greenock Morton F.C. players Scottish Football League managers Scottish football managers Raith Rovers F.C. managers Dundee United F.C. non-playing staff Greenock Morton F.C. non-playing staff