Derek Dougan-Gap Rating 5/10

He was a former professional footballer. Dougan was something of a journeyman footballer, playing for several clubs, before he joined Wolves in 1967.

In 18 years in the English League, Dougan scored a total of 222 goals in 546 matches, including 95 in 258 for Wolves. He began his career as a wing-half / central defender before being converted to a centre-forward. During his career, Dougan scored hat-tricks in the First Division, the Second Division, the FA Cup, the League Cup and the UEFA Cup and scored more English League goals then any other Irishman.

Dougan made 76 appearances and scored 17 goals for Distillery, helping them win the Irish Cup in 1956, before joining Portsmouth for a fee of £4,000 in August 1957. Dougan made 33 league appearances and scored 9 league goals for Portsmouth, playing a further three games for them in the FA Cup. He then moved to Blackburn Rovers in March 1959 for a fee of £15,000 and went onto to play for Rovers in the 1960 FA Cup final, despite having asked for a transfer on the eve of the match. After two and a half years at Ewood Park Dougan went to Aston Villa in July 1961. Two years later he moved to Peterborough United before signing for Leicester City in 1966.

Dougan joined Wolverhampton Wanderers for £50,000 in March 1967 and in just over eight seasons at Wolves, Dougan made 323 senior appearances and scored 123 goals.

Dougan helped Wolves clinch promotion from the Second Division in 1967. He was then leading marksman at Wolves in 1967-68, 1968-69 and 1971-72. He also netted a hat-trick in the UEFA Cup against Académica, becoming the only Wolves player to date to have scored a hat-trick in a major European competition. Four days before that game Dougan had also netted three goals when Wolves beat Nottingham Forest in a league match.

During his time at Wolves, Dougan formed successful partnerships with Peter Knowles, Hugh Curran, Bobby Gould and then John Richards and in 1974 collected a League Cup winners medal. Dougan also played for Wolves in the United States. In 1967, playing as the Los Angeles Wolves, they won the United Soccer Association title and in 1969, playing as Kansas City Spurs, they won the NASL International Cup.

Dougan represented Northern Ireland at schoolboy, U-19, amateur and B level as a wing-half and centre-defender. Dougan won 43 senior caps and scored 8 goals for Northern Ireland. He made his international debut on June 8 1958 in 1-0 win against Czechoslovakia during the 1958 FIFA World Cup. He made his final appearance for Northern Ireland on February 14 1973 in a 1974 FIFA World Cup qualifier against Cyprus.

Together with Pat Jennings and Martin O'Neill, Dougan was also one of seven Northern Ireland internationals to feature in a Shamrock Rovers XI against Brazil in an exhibition match in July 1973. Dougan scored one of Rovers goals in the 4-3 defeat. The Rovers XI was actually an All-Ireland XI and also featured several Republic of Ireland internationals. The Northern Ireland-based IFA had opposed the staging of the game and Dougan, who had helped organise it, later maintained that this had caused IFA President Harry Cavan to instruct manager Terry Neill not to pick him again for his country. However the facts make this unlikely, since Dougan's international career was already over, seeing as he had not been picked for any of Northern Ireland's previous five games. Moreover, he had failed to find the net in any of what were to be his final 10 international appearances. Further, although he made 30 League starts from 42 for Wolves the following season, managing a credible 10 goals, he was now in the twilight of his career, so that he retired from playing completely at the age of 37 after making just three starts in the 1974-75 season, less than two years after the Brazil match.

During the 1970 FIFA World Cup Dougan was a panelist for ITV. He served as chairman of the Professional Footballers Association from 1970 to 1978 and in 1983 was later chairman and chief executive of Wolves. In December 2005, Dougan helped carry the coffin of George Best with a number of other Northern Ireland teammates. On June 14 2006, he appeared on the BBC political show Question Time, as a representative of United Kingdom Independence Party.

Dougan died on 24th June 2007 aged 69.