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THE sun was shining on the home of Dundee FC yesterday afternoon but it still was not strong enough to shed light on an extraordinary mystery at this famous old Scottish club: its chairman is missing.
Ron Dixon, a Canadian entrepreneur who bought the Dens Park club in 1991 for a reported pounds 600,000, has not contacted club officials for seven months. He does not know his team has made an impressive start to the season or read the rave reviews for his young players. Most startlingly, he does not know Dundee have made it to the Coca-Cola Cup final, where they meet Aberdeen.
Jim Duffy, the Dundee manager, would have told him the good news in his weekly telephone chat after last week's 3 2 First Division victory at Airdrie. But the calls abruptly stopped in January.
"I would have said: 'Ron, we're in the Coca-Cola Cup final'. He would have said: 'Is that good?'," Duffy said yesterday. "I would have said yes and he would have said 'great Jim'. He's a very shrewd businessman but he's a Canadian, he knows less than nothing about football."
Asked about Dixon's whereabouts, the Dundee boss shrugged and said what everyone at Dens Park says: "I honestly don't know."
It is not exactly clear how the Vancouver-based businessman came to own a football club 5,000 miles across the Atlantic. It certainly was not a sentimental gesture towards his boyhood roots. Neil...