I've been to many Arbroath matches over the years but the one that stands out was actually a defeat. It was on 12 March 1977, a Scottish Cup quarter-final against local rivals Dundee that finished 1-3 in front of a massive crowd of 9,558 at Gayfield. In the previous round we had knocked out Premier League Hibernian after a famous replay win at a wet and windy Easter Road in Edinburgh that I also attended. If we could beat Hibs then we could also beat Dundee who were only 3 points above us in the old First Division table (equivalent to today's championship).
I travelled up from Edinburgh with my Dad with high hopes and we stood near the harbour end of the ground as the photo above shows. It was amazing seeing the ground absolutely packed . Arbroath had a good side in those days with players like John Fletcher, Jimmy Bone, Tom Cargill and veteran Gordon Marshall in goal. As for Dundee they had a promising young lad called Gordon Strachan who proved to play a key role in the away team's victory as well as former Celtic star Tommy Gemmell and top scorer Billy Pirie who had moved from Arbroath the previous season.
The game got off to the best possible start when Tommy Yule put Arbroath ahead in the first minute and the Arbroath end went wild. Thoughts of potential semi-final opponents went through my head but Dundee set about creating pressure and it paid off in the 24th minute when that man Strachan slotted in the equaliser from the edge of the 6 yard box. Arbroath played very well holding out Dundee and making a few chances for themselves. With only four minutes to go and a replay at Dens Park looking very likely the deadlock was broken by Strachan with a neat dribble on the left, a cross and a free header into the net by Eric Sinclair. Two minutes later Sinclair headed home another cross from the left to seal the victory. I was still proud of the fighting performance Arbroath had made and if we had just converted one of our chances (Yule hit the post for example), who knows.
One thing is certain - that was the biggest crowd at Gayfield in my lifetime and is not going to be improved on now, unless they rebuild the whole stadium.
Here is a video of the game though sadly only showing the Dundee goals and giving the impression that it was one way traffic.
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