Dan`s Cup Medal

The winning of a Cup medal should be an honour and one which only a lucky few footballers manage to achieve, especially if you play for a provincial club.

Nowadays clubs receive enough medals to give to the winners, the substitutes (whether they came on or not) and anyone else they choose within their quota. What is, perhaps not known is that there is a group of players, who although they played in a Cup Final and their team won, they have never received a medal. This anomaly occurs because a small number of finals required replays and the SFA stuck by their ruling that you had to play in the replay and win to get your medal.

It had been accepted at the time, but as years progressed and more and more medals were presented to players and officials who hadn`t even played, the injustice of it became clearer.

1960/61 was a momentous season for The Pars as they won the Scottish Cup for the first time. The Final took place on Saturday 22nd April 1961 in front of 113,228 fans. The largest attendance which Dunfermline have appeared before, to this day. Dan McLindon played in this Final, but it finished 0-0 and a replay was required. Injury and a lack of fitness led to Jackie Williamson and Dan missing that replay, John Sweeney and Davie Thomson coming in and the team victorious by 2-0.

It had been a travesty that Dan did not receive a winners medal, despite appearing in the Final and despite his requests to the SFA. On hearing of this Jim Leishman campaigned on behalf of Dan and, earlier this year, the SFA relented, in this case. The only problem was that the medal was going to cost £700. Step forward the Former Players Association and Chris Wishart, who each paid half of the cost of the medal. Before Christmas, Dan enjoyed a trip to Hampden, with Margaret Ross and Jim Leishman, to be presented with the medal by Stewart Regan.

Dan is a founder member of the Pars Former Players Association and still comes to games at East End several times a season. Now he has the medal to proudly celebrate the high spot of his career.