Most of the history of Dundee United is not that. We've had great periods of it, most notably when JYM was manager.
Historically, playing the United way was to have Scottish managers who knew the game - Jerry Kerr, Jim McLean, Craig Houston and Craig Levein - home grown managers who knew all about Scottish football.
The United way was to have one of the best youth systems in Scotland - the envy of the whole of Scotland with United producing players who would go on and play for Scotland.
Playing the United way means playing attractive, skillful football, reaching quarter finals, semi finals or cup finals, getting a decent league position and playing in Europe - this is what playing the United way means.
United have always had a good balance of Scottish players in their team - Willie Pettigrew, Davie Dodds, Mo Malpas, Danny Swanson and lots and lots of bigger name Scottish players - this was the Dundee United way.
In the modern game perhaps there are too many non - Scottish players in the team who don't understand the club's tradition, history or ambitions - United have had some great non Scottish players such as Ciftci and Jon Daily, but historically United have a long tradition of nurturing young players through their youth policy.
United also won the Scottish Cup with Golac, but historically United have a better record with Scottish managers.
United have also been a selling club ( which helped finance the club's ambitions ) - but in recent years United have had fewer talent to sell.
Times change, things move on - nothing last forever. But what has happened to the Dundee United way ?
Most of the history of Dundee United is not that. We've had great periods of it, most notably when JYM was manager.
That's a wee bit selective bud.
Since the 80's we've been primarily a top half top flight team, but apart from the Jim heyday we've never really consistently put all of the above elements together at once.
If we did we'd have seen more trophies and league titles.
The Utd way over the past 40 years is to be a consistent, upper/mid level Scottish side with occasional seasons of greatness, and occasional seasons of complete and utter tripe.
This sustained dross we've seen for the past 4 seasons needs to be swiftly eradicated before it comes to be seen as the norm for our club.
For example, I still view Dundee FC as a Championship side enjoying brief hiatus from their natural level - that's because they had the sustained jolly in the not too distant past while we were having a sustained spell of buoyancy - that was only a period of 9-10 years, but that is how I see them. We are about halfway into the length of that jolly with no signs of coming out any time soon, thus we are in danger of younger generations thinking that what we are serving up right now is the Utd way...... This needs to be stopped immediately.
Okay, I agree, this is selective and "cherry picking" has indeed been at play here.
But it does highlight how adrift we have become and that we have lost our way in recent years - but we all knew that already !
Now we have our own fans trying to take away from our history and talk it down, yes we weren't always like that but since Jerry Kerr made us an established top flight club we have never been this bad, don't forget that only Celtic, Rangers and Aberdeen have won more since then, and only those have also reached European finals or been in as many finals and semi finals, no other clubs come close outwith the Edinburgh clubs
Also don't under estimate 2007-2015, that would be many other clubs most successful period
We are very much top 4-6 club in Scotland and when we are run correctly are clearly bigger than anyone but the obvious 5 clubs, especially in terms of the support we can pull and our current position is disgraceful
MM needs to be the bullet and get rid of this dumplin that does not deserve to lead our club
No idea why predictive text thought i was going for Nathan but there we go.....
You are actually on the money Shedka. The revisionists and ArabTRUST mouthpieces who would dilute our achievements over the last few decades are as bad as those who have brought us to this juncture. The walk out at 3-1 should have been all the notice required to bin the Waffler. Rumours have him gone if we dont win in Dumfries.
The club's achievements are amazing and I for one am very proud of them. If you look at the entirely of our history though it's really not the norm.