Dundee United is a Scottish team, not as successful as Celtic or Rangers, but that undoubtedly gained notoriety in the mid-80’s for reaching the final of the UEFA Cup, and the team’s name is well known in Nigeria, although for reasons that they will not like too much.
In 2010, the BBC was commissioned to broadcast a documentary called “Welcome to Lagos”, capital of Nigeria and in it they portrayed life in the African city. All this brings us to the end of one of the chapters of the shoot in which a character named Chubbey appears.
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Chubbey explained that to survive in Makoko, a Nigerian community, you had to have common sense and used a term in the interview that would become a surprise to those who watched that documentary and they have some kind of knowledge about Scottish football.
The word he used was ‘Dundee United’ to refer to some dumb or idiotic people, but why in Lagos, Nigeria would the name of a Scottish team be used to refer in a derogatory way to someone, what was it that happened that generated this.
The newspaper The Guardian began to perform an investigation into the origin of this insult in Nigeria And although he did not find an answer from Dundee United to clarify this issue, but he did with some people who guided them on where this denomination can come from, without being sure yet.
Dundee United and the European Cup
Dundee United had reached the semi-finals of the European Cup (now the Champions League) in the 1984 season, everything seemed like a dream for the Scottish team, since in the first leg they had taken a 2-0 lead against Roma.
The second leg, in theory, would be a process for them, but they did not have the talent of Roma. They fell 3-0 in the second leg and left them out of any possibility of fighting for the most coveted trophy. What does this have to do with the fact that in Nigeria the word Dundee United is used to refer to someone as an idiot?
The answer is easy to explain, because in those years a large part of Nigerian citizens supported Dundee United and decided to bet their money that it advanced to the final against Liverpool. The end was not pleasant for them or for the team. And this is one of the possible theories as to how he might have started to use the team term.
Nigerian tour and total failure
Another of the theories that is handled is that during a Dundee United tour in 1972 in Nigeria, everything ended in failure for the Scottish team. He faced amateur teams and only won one match of which he played, in fact, one of the encounters he lost in front of 35,000 people.
It was obvious that Nigerian fans expected a little more effort from a top-tier soccer first division team, at the time, than they were disappointed in Dundee United’s performance. Not only them, the press in some headlines asked them not to return, because of the bad taste in their mouths.
This discontent over Dundee United may have caused such a rage that they began to use the name as an insult and stop using the word idiot. For sure, the true origin is unknown, but these 2 theories are more than valid to define the origin.
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