'Doddsy, you're killing me!'
When Swap Deals Attack - the inside story
Billy Dodds = Robbie Winters + £750,000.
The maths behind swap deals, that rare and interesting sub-genre of the football transfer, don’t always add up. In an extract from the new issue of Nutmeg Magazine, Gordon Waddell spoke to Billy Dodds about one of the most memorable examples.
By Gordon Waddell
Necessity is the mother of invention – a phrase widely attributed to the philosopher Plato around 2,400 years ago. Probably right around the time the Greeks first introduced the transfer window.
Roughly translated, it means if your need for something outstrips your current ability to get it, you’ll find a way. In a football sense, that usually means you buy your way out of trouble but if all you have are your wits rather than an oligarch’s chequebook; if all you have are players you think aren’t going to get you where you’ve promised everyone you’ll be, then it becomes a whole lot harder. If you’re in the doldrums, what you have no one wants, and what you need no one wants to give you. Which is why, in Scottish football certainly, these deals are the outliers.
The swap. The trade. The exchange.
In American sports, between franchises? They’re inured in the culture, where GMs and agents and coaches wheel and deal players and future draft picks like Wall Street commodities. Here? They’re a rarity because balancing the scales to keep everyone happy is nigh-on impossible.
So in this Nutmeg transfer special, we’ve spoken firstly to both the traded and the trader to get a handle on why they’re so hard to execute, and why so few of them happen. Then comes a Top Ten of some of the more interesting ones that did make it over the line. Because in an exchange of equals, some always end up more equal than others…
Dodds and Winters
In September 1998, Aberdeen traded their popular striker, Billy Dodds, a Scotland cap who’d hit 64 goals in 160 games and scored to win them their first trophy in six seasons (the 1995/96 League Cup) for Dundee United’s Robbie Winters, plus an eye-watering £700,000.
Winters was 23 and full of potential and, more importantly for Dons manager Alex Miller, pace. Dodds was 29 and, although an established favourite, not getting any younger or quicker.
There was logic in there somewhere but Aberdeen fans struggled to see it, and even Miller’s successor Ebbe Skovdahl publicly questioned its wisdom long into the aftermath. Nearly 28 years later, Dodds, now Neil McCann’s No.2 at Kilmarnock, remembers every detail like it was yesterday because it had such a profound effect on him and his career.
“The first thing to say is there are no hard feelings. It’s football. And I didn’t feel I was forced into it – because in the end I made sure it was on my terms. But at the time? It made me the most determined player ever.
“I got wind of what was happening the night before the first game of the season when a friend called while we were on the bus on our way to Inverness. It was a League Cup game, and Alex Miller was sitting about four rows in front of me. I got the sense something was off. He kept turning round and looking at me a bit oddly.
“I was determined to dig in like mad. We won 3-0 the following day – and I scored a hat-trick!
“Alex always had a meeting on the Monday to debrief our games and he was pointing at me, saying ‘See if you all played like him…’ when I knew he was wanting rid of me. It was embarrassing, me sitting there being made to feel like the class sook, knowing what I knew.
“Sadly, I couldn’t hit a barn door for the next six weeks, but I dug my heels in and made sure if it was going to happen, it would be the deal I wanted it to be – and it was in the end.
“I understood why Alex wanted it – Aberdeen had no pace in the team and that was something Robbie had in abundance. He wanted something different and needed to use me to make it happen. If we met today, we’d shake hands, have a chat and it would be fine.
“It also helped that it was Paul Sturrock on the other end of the deal. Luggy was like a father figure for me and always brought the best out in me, even if it was just for short spells. He’d signed me for St Johnstone from Dundee, then sold me to Aberdeen when Saints went down after about six months, then he signed me for Dundee United.
“I scored 26 goals in 45 league games and ended up with Rangers paying another £1m-plus fee for me after I’d only been there 13 months. So it all worked out in the end – but I’d like to think that’s because I got my head down to make it work.
“The penny dropped for me about how fickle the business could be and I really dug in. I turned 30 while I was at Dundee United, but I won 22 of my 26 Scotland caps after that, scored all my international goals after that, won a league and Scottish Cup double and another League Cup. All from what looked like me being on the receiving end of a raw deal.
“I loved it at Aberdeen, lived in the city, kept living there after I signed for United and the physio there, John Sharp, was one of my best mates.
“I remember bumping into Robbie and him going ‘You’re killing me, man!’ because I’d hit the ground running and he’d taken a wee while to get going. But he did eventually and turned out to be an excellent player for Aberdeen.
“One of the great ironies, though, was me scoring in the Scottish Cup final for Rangers, the only one I won – and I scored it past Robbie! It was the game in 2000 when Jim Leighton went off injured in the first few minutes. It was before we had goalies on the bench, so he had to pull the gloves on. One of those wee quirks of fate, I suppose.”
The Transfer Issue - get the latest issue of Nutmeg Magazine today to read the full version of this feature and many more brilliant football stories, made in Scotland
