Albert Kidd (born 19 October 1961) is a Scottish former

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

player who now lives in Australia. He is best known in Scottish football for scoring two

goal A goal or objective is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan, and commit to achieve. People endeavour to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines. A goal is roughly similar to ...

s for

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

against Hearts on the final day of the 1985–86 season to deny Hearts the

championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

Career

Early career

Kidd began his senior career in 1976 at Scottish Second Division side Brechin City where he made 18 league appearances without scoring. A year later he moved up a division and joined

Arbroath Arbroath () or Aberbrothock ( ) is a former royal burgh and the largest town in the Subdivisions of Scotland, council area of Angus, Scotland, Angus, Scotland, with a population of 23,902. It lies on the North Sea coast, some east-northeast of ...

where he played for over two years. During that time Kidd scored 19 goals in 95 league appearances. In 1979, Kidd moved to

Motherwell Motherwell (, ) is a List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, town and former burgh in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, south east of Glasgow. It has a population of around 32,120. Shires of Scotland, Historically in the p ...

where he maintained a decent scoring rate of 18 goals in 53 league appearances. Motherwell failed to win promotion in either of Kidd's two seasons there.

Dundee

In the summer of 1981, Kidd moved to

, who had just gained promotion to the

Scottish Premier Division The Scottish Football League Premier Division was, from 1975 until 1998, the top division of the Scottish Football League and the entire Scottish football league system. It lay above the Scottish Football League First, Second and (from 1994) ...

. Prior to the day of what transpired to be his final game for Dundee, Kidd had made 114 league appearances for Dundee, scoring a modest 10 times. He had made only 11 appearances that season, seven of which were as a substitute.

3 May 1986

Going into the final day of the 1985–86 season, Hearts were in a very strong position. They were two points clear of second-placed

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...

and had a

goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches ar ...

that was four goals better. With only two points available for a win in Scottish football at this time (

three points for a win Three points for a win is a standard used in many sports leagues and group tournaments, especially in association football, in which 3 points are awarded to the team winning a match, with no points awarded to the losing team. If the game is draw ...

was not introduced until

1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

), Hearts only needed to avoid defeat in the match at Dens Park to win the championship. Hearts had not lost any match since 28 September 1985. It was also possible that Hearts could win the championship even if they lost the match, so long as Celtic did not overturn the goal difference advantage by winning heavily against St Mirren at Love Street. Dundee had all to play for themselves. Dundee and Rangers were vying for fifth place in the league; with the team finishing fifth gaining the last 'European' spot and entry into the following season's UEFA Cup. Rangers were ahead of Dundee in the league going into the final fixture of the season, but a win for Dundee and defeat for Rangers would see the Dens Park side leap-frog Rangers in the league and qualify for Europe. At

half-time In several team sports, matches are played in two halves. Half-time (also written halftime or half time) is the name given to the interval between the two halves of the match. Typically, after half-time, teams swap ends of the field of play in or ...

, with the scoreline at Dens Park still 0–0, it was announced over the

public address A public address system (or PA system) is an electronic system comprising microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers, and related equipment. It increases the apparent volume (loudness) of a human voice, musical instrument, or other acoustic sound sou ...

system that Celtic were winning 4–0. Although Hearts were on course to win the point they needed to win the championship, the score at Love Street meant that Hearts had lost their goal difference advantage over Celtic. Hearts knew that they would have to avoid defeat in their match to win the championship. Midway through the second half, with the score at Dens Park still locked at 0–0, the Dundee

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...

Archie Knox brought on Kidd (a forward) as a substitute for left full-back Tosh McKinlay in an effort to win the game. Dundee needed to win the game to stand a chance of qualifying for the

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

.Despite winning the game against Hearts, Dundee did not qualify for the 1986–87 UEFA Cup because Rangers also won their game and took the last qualifying position. In the 83rd minute, with Hearts less than 10 minutes away from winning their first championship since

1960 It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism. Events January * Janu ...

, Kidd scored the opening goal with a close-range finish from a corner kick. Six minutes later, Kidd effectively ended Hearts' chances by scoring a second goal to make the final score a 2–0 win for Dundee. Remarkably, Kidd had not scored all season before scoring two goals in the last 10 minutes of the season. Celtic won their game 5–0 to win the championship on goal difference by three goals.

Later career

Kidd left Dundee to join

Falkirk Falkirk ( ; ; ) is a town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, historically within the county of Stirlingshire. It lies in the Forth Valley, northwest of Edinburgh and northeast of Glasgow. Falkirk had a resident population of 32,422 at the ...

for the following season, 1986–87. In an ironic twist, Falkirk went to

Celtic Park Celtic Park is a Soccer-specific stadium, football stadium and the home of Scottish Premiership team Celtic F.C., Celtic, in the Parkhead area of Glasgow, Scotland. With a capacity of 60,832, it is the largest List of football stadiums in Sco ...

in the penultimate game of the season needing a result to ensure their top-flight status, while Celtic needed to win to retain an outside chance of winning the championship. Kidd came on as a substitute as Falkirk won 2–1, effectively ending Celtic's championship challenge. The winning goal was scored by Jimmy Gilmour. Kidd left Scottish football in 1987 to play for

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

NSL side West Adelaide SC.

After football

Kidd has lived in Australia since emigrating there to play for West Adelaide SC. Despite living far from Scotland, he is still fondly remembered by Celtic fans and particularly by fans of Hibs, who are Hearts' rivals in Edinburgh. This is despite the fact that Kidd never played for either Celtic or Hibs. There are

anecdote An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Anecdotes may be real ...

s that Hibs effectively stopped playing during their match against

Dundee United Dundee United Football Club is a Scotland, Scottish professional association football, football club based in the city of Dundee. Formed in 1909, originally as Dundee Hibernian, the club changed to the present name in 1923. United are nickname ...

on the same day, allowing United to score a winning goal in the meaningless match, due to the joyous reaction of the Hibs support to the news from Dens Park. Kidd himself has told an anecdote that Billy Connolly (a Celtic fan)Scottish comedian and Celtic fan, Billy Connolly, celebrates victory at Parkhead as Celtic win the Scottish Championship
Empics was

star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...

-struck when he accidentally met Kidd in an

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

hotel. As Connolly is famous around the

English-speaking world The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English language, English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, between one and two billion people spoke English, making it the ...

, Kidd instantly recognised him, but Connolly didn't initially recognise Kidd. As the pair went through some good-natured

small talk Small talk is an informal type of discourse that does not cover any functional topics of conversation or any transactions that need to be addressed. In essence, it is polite and standard conversation about unimportant things. The phenomenon ...

, Connolly eventually realised who he was talking to.

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kidd, Albert 1961 births Arbroath F.C. players Men's association football forwards Brechin City F.C. players Carnoustie Panmure F.C. players Dundee F.C. players Expatriate men's soccer players in Australia Falkirk F.C. players Living people Motherwell F.C. players Scottish expatriate men's footballers Scottish Football League players Scottish men's footballers Footballers from Dundee West Adelaide SC players Scottish expatriate sportspeople in Australia