Derek Dougan

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Seasons

Age*

Division

Appearances

Starts

Substitute

Unused

Goals

From

Played Under

Joe Mercer |

First Squad Appearance

Debut Appearance

First Goal

Monday, 28 August 1961

Final Appearance

Wednesday, 15 May 1963

Leicester City (h), Division One

Final Squad Appearance

Wednesday, 15 May 1963

Derek Dougan

Player #493 for Aston Villa, Alexander Derek Dougan, known as Derek Dougan, and nicknamed The Doog, the Lovable Irish Scamp, Cheyenne and the Jolly Play Boy played as a forward for the club.

Dougan played for Villa in 1961-62 and 1962-63 making 60 appearances and scoring 26 goals.

Dougan was born in Belfast on 20 January 1938 and made his debut appearance for Villa on Saturday, 19 August 1961 aged 23.

Villa had signed Dougan from Blackburn Rovers on 1 July 1961 for a fee of £15,000.

Dougan was signed by manager Joe Mercer as a replacement for Gerry Hitchens, who had been sold on to Inter Milan earlier in the summer for £85,000.

Although Derek was a semi-regular starter for Villa and made double figure contributions of goals in each of his two seasons, his time at Villa was not a successful one.

Indeed Dougan’s teammate and Villa forward Peter McParland later commented that “when Derek came to us at Aston Villa I think it was at a time when he was not taking the game particularly seriously”.

Within months of joining Dougan’s time with Villa was marked by controversy - after returning from watching his teammates win the 1961 League Cup Final 2nd leg at Villa Park on 5 September 1961, Dougan was a passenger in a car accident which killed fellow passenger Malcolm Williams and left Dougan with a broken arm and head injuries; the driver of the car was Villa forward Bobby Thomson.

Nearly four decades later Bobby Thomson revealed that the cause of the accident was Dougan drunkenly pulling a deerstalker hat over his eyes.

Dougan recovered after three months on the sidelines and ended the 1961–62 season with 12 goals in 27 matches.

Dougan then twisted his knee midway through the 1962–63 campaign after ‘slipping’ in the street, and ended the season with 14 goals from 33 games.

He did however hit 5 goals in 4 games in the 1962-63 League Cup competition when Villa finished runner up having won the competition two years previously.

Dougan left Villa on 31 July 1963 for Peterborough United in return for a fee of £21,000 after playing his final game for the club on Wednesday, 15 May 1963 aged 25.

Dougan passed away on 23 June 2007 in Wolverhampton aged 69.