Dundee United’s glory days in Europein the 1980s saw some mighty scalps taken but even then there were few easy games. This Uefa Cup first round return leg against Swedish side AIK Stockholm in the 1984-5 competition was a case in point.

The match at Tannadice proved difficult for the Terrors. The Swedes already had a one goal advantage from the first leg and they created most of the chances in the first half, forcing keeper Hamish McAlpine to make some difficult saves.

The Arabs were not about to allow their recent run of success founder at the first sign of a challenge, however. Having won the Scottish Premier Division with a record number of points and goals in 82/83 and reached the semi-final of the European Cup, narrowly losing out to Italian side AS Roma, they were a force to be reckoned with.

Following a goal-less first half, United came out for the second half in fighting spirit and it wasn’t long before they made their mark on the score sheet.

With only a minute gone, Ralph Milne made his way down the wing and played a cross onto the head of Davie Dodds. Although keeper Ljung did well to keep the ball out the net, his failure to keep hold of it allowed Paul Sturrock to finish the job and steal an easy tap-in.

The second goal came from more smooth wing play, this time on the left with Bannon playing the cross for Dodds. As before, the keeper saved Dodds’ initial headed shot, but failed to hold the ball, this time allowing Milne to strike it past the fumbling goalie to make it 2-0.

Having identified the Swede’s weakness, the Tangerines made it three just a few minutes later again with a run down the wing this time by Maurice Malpas. His cross into the box was met by Milne who blasted the ball into the roof of the net beating the Swedish keeper for a second time.

The matched finished 3-0 and the 11,000 fans were ecstatic to be going through to the next round of the Uefa Cup. The second round provided the fans with more to celebrate as the Terrors defeated Austria’s LASK Linz 7-2 over two legs. The victory was short lived as they bowed out in the third round to a narrow 5-4 defeat by Manchester United.