FACE TO FACE WITH BEST MATE
Gavin Rae will come face to face with his best friend Dennis Wyness when Dundee take on Inverness Caledonian Thistle at Hampden on Sunday. The Scotland international told us “Dennis and I have been best mates for years and it’s just good that our careers have progressed to the stage we’ll be facing each other in a Scottish Cup semi final at Hampden. I’ve played against him when he was at Aberdeen and we played together at school, It will be a good occasion for us both on Sunday.
We asked Gavin about his previous experience of the national stadium and he told us “I’ve played at Hampden twice before, once in the Youth Cup Final (in 1996) and about twenty minutes for Scotland against Latvia in 2001.
I’m the longest serving player now and I’ve been at Dens for about nine years, which is about a year and half longer than Barry Smith. Lee Wilkie played in that Youth Cup final too, he was only a kid, about 15 I think but he was just as tall then as he is now. We’ll be the only two who’ve played for Dundee at Hampden before. It’s obviously the biggest game of my Dundee career and probably on a par with playing for Scotland as a highlight."
“When I signed for Dundee one of my long term aims was to play at Hampden for the club, luckily on Sunday I’m going to get the chance to do that and I’m delighted."
"I hope the fans will be patient, it’ll be a tough game, they are a good team and it was hard to overcome Falkirk in the last round. We needed extra time and at one point it could have gone either way. The fans in both of those games were excellent, there will be a good turnout on Sunday and I hope they are the same again."