275 years as your voice
The 1970s series, What Happened to the Likely Lads, had a theme song.
Composed by Mike Hugg, it contained the phrase: “The only thing we can hope for is the past. ” And it has an increasingly common refrain for Aberdeen FC fans, as another year has passed in which the Dons have failed to win titles. for your trophy case.
Yes, they were in the League Cup final earlier this month at Hampden Park. And yes, there have been court cases where their opponents, the Rangers, haven’t conceded a penalty at the national festival since the days of Rip van Winkle pinching.
But in fact, Aberdeen deserved to lose the game [1-0] and the statistic that they failed to get a single shot on target is testament to a functionality that lacked the fundamental ingredients: a relentless pursuit of perfection and a refusal to be intimidated by their warring Old Firm matches, which made the Pittodrie club such a formidable proposition every time they travelled to Glasgow with Alex Ferguson in the league. 1980s.
Of course, in those days there is a huge monetary disparity between the resources (and duration of the fan base) that Celtic, Rangers and their Scottish rivals have.
These are not game points and what the Dons and others can expect is to be in the mix, fight for cup races and have a chance to claim an occasional prize.
Yet, even here, the statistics bear out that Aberdeen are not exactly matching the achievements of their peers.
Since 2000, in terms of victories in either the League Cup or Scottish Cup, they’ve managed just the one success – in 2014 in the former event – which is the same as Livingston, Kilmarnock, St Mirren, Ross County, Dundee United and Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
That’s one less than the pair of awards amassed through Edinburgh duo Hearts and Hibs and, more tellingly, two fewer than St Johnstone, who in 2021 achieved a larger single-season cutlery harvest than Donations have amassed since the millennium.
There’s another factor which has been raised by several Aberdeen aficionados. They alone, of all the country’s four major metropolitan areas, are the only one-city club, where all the best talent should be filtered through the same entrance at Pittodrie.
So why is the entire Dons saga considered to be the footballing equivalent of the Jarndyce affair in Dickens’ The Bleak House?A stadium where the wheels spin in circles and there are constant communications about a new stadium, but nothing really happens?
I was among the crowd of people who attended the Gothenburg Grands Prix, where Aberdeen’s freedom was conferred last May and there weren’t many dry eyes in the stadium when Willie Miller, Alex McLeish, Jim Leighton and John Hewitt took another path of reminiscence for Let’s talk about the unprecedented way they beat Real Madrid on a rainy afternoon in Sweden 40 years ago.
And yet, Miller, the proud warrior who was the beating heart of that side, and the mirror image of his gaffer Ferguson on the pitch, was scathing about how little the current side offered in the recent defeat to Rangers.
As he put it: “Aberdeen were in the cup final, they were cheered on by almost 20,000 people and yet they failed to score a single shot on target.
“The Dons fans will be deflated after that, as will the players and manager. I agree with manager Barry Robson when he said the Aberdeen players gave everything.
“But football is about running and expending energy. It’s much more than that. Football is about quality, togetherness and being satisfied with the way you play.
He’s correct and, coming from somebody who many Aberdeen supporters have nicknamed God, it’s a pretty damning indictment of how standards have slipped.
Or is this where we find ourselves in Scottish football, where damage limitation and respect for respect’s sake are more than creating opportunities?
If that’s the case, then the lyrics of the Likely Lads theme seem even more relevant.
Jock Gardiner, a member of the Aberdeen FC Heritage Trust, is among those who are unfairly tipped in the balance, namely through the SPFL-led government, as opposed to any rival to the old Old’s former hegemony.
He said: “Fergie’s legacy is one that everyone linked to Gifts appreciates, but in fact is not seen as a cornerstone for the existing team.
“In the same way Aberdeen had a great side in the 80s, both Edinburgh teams (our direct peer group competitors) had successful trophy-winning eras in the 1950s/1960s.
“The monetary clout of Glasgow clubs makes it a real challenge for other Scottish teams to win trophies today; it’s fair to say that Aberdeen deserve to have put more trophies in Pittodrie’s trophy cabinet. “
Dave Macdermid, a PR specialist who worked at Pittodrie in the past, believes in putting things in context by comparing football in the 2020s to that of the 80s.
He said: “It’s important to emphasise that, while obviously no Aberdeen fan wishes the Fergie years hadn’t occurred, it did raise the bar considerably in terms of what subsequent expectation levels have been, which is completely understandable.
“I think managers from Ian Porterfield onwards have also suffered because of those expectations, but honestly, I think the whole set of cases that happened with Sir Alex was a once-in-a-lifetime achievement (much like Andy Murray in tennis) and although we were relatively successful after Fergie, we were relatively successful after Fergie, we weren’t spectacular enough before Fergie either.
“There have been cups we’ve won but not and we hope to play European football regularly, but the good luck with Sir Alex was simply due to the fact that we hired the most productive club manager in the history of football. “