Aberdeen
have what money can't buy - a soul; a team spirit built in a family
tradition.' The legendary Alfredo Di Stefano, Real Madrid manager,
uttered those poignant words following his side's defeat in the 1983
European Cup-Winners' Cup final. The crestfallen coach summed up what
the Dons were all about under Alex Ferguson. The success achieved during
his time at Pittodrie was unprecedented. Never before and certainly not
since has a team from the provinces had the temerity to launch such a
sustained assault on the Old Firm's dominance. If the Aberdeen side was
moulded in Ferguson's character, then they were not for messing with. It
all began after strenuous efforts by Dick Donald and Chris Anderson
failed to keep Billy McNeill in the manager's job. Ferguson was not
unknown to the club: he had been touted as MacLeod's replacement twelve
months earlier, but McNeill had been first choice. On this occasion the
circumstances were different. Ferguson, who had dragged St Mirren into
the Premier League, had fallen out with the Paisley club and was now
clear to take up the vacancy. Since his own playing career had come to a
close, Ferguson had unleashed his coaching talents with East Stirling
and then St Mirren. It appeared a solid grounding, and the Aberdeen job
was as big as he could have hoped for. If the board had gone out on a
limb a year earlier when appointing the inexperienced McNeill, they took
the mightiest gamble with Ferguson.
His
playing career had been filled with controversy and at 35 he was barely
older than the senior pros at Aberdeen. By his own admission, he irked
his new players by comparing them unfavourably with those he had left
behind at St Mirren, though with hindsight it was all part of his
learning process. Ferguson did not have his troubles to seek in his
first season. His first serious battle with the Old Firm came in the
1978-79 League Cup final against Rangers. Despite scoring first,
circumstances conspired against the Dons who, with some justification,
felt cruelly done by. Steve Archibald never recovered from a brutal
Derek Johnstone challenge in the first minute; Doug Rougvie was sent off
in controversial circumstances after allegedly stamping on the same
Rangers player; and six minutes into injury-time added by referee Foote
Rangers netted a winner to compound the Dons misery. The final left a
bitter aftertaste, and is perhaps the source of the tension that has
soured relations between the clubs ever since.
The
main personnel changes made by Ferguson in his first season were,
first, to put Jim Leighton in goal to cover for the injured Bobby Clark,
and second, in April, to gradually introduce his first major signing,
Mark McGhee, a £70,000 buy from Newcastle. The Aberdeen support was
still in two minds over their new manager. Stories of dressing-room
dissent kept surfacing, and the facts showed that Ferguson's team failed
to live up to the standards set by McNeill's. That would all change in
1979-80, though the players and supporters had to endure another League
Cup final defeat along the way. In December 1979 Aberdeen allowed Dundee
United to lift their first major trophy, and basically the Dons just
gifted it to them. Aberdeen had swept past the Old Firm en route to
Hampden, defeating both Rangers and Celtic home and away. They had got
to the final the hardest way possible. However, failing to score at
Hampden - though Aberdeen dominated the game - offered Jim McLean's men a
second chance they barely deserved. United took it to win the replay at
Dens Park. On a real off night for the Dons, they were sunk 0-3.
Looking back, that was perhaps the blackest moment of Ferguson's tenure.
Midfielder John McMaster spoke afterwards of the graffiti scrawled on
the Pittodrie perimetet the next morning: 'You have let us down again.1
McMaster, along with his team-mates, was determined to change that. Six months later they did, claiming Aberdeen's first Premier League title...
It
was a most unlikely success. Celtic had headed the race for months and,
by the time the country emerged from a bitter winter, they were twelve
points ahead and cruising. The Dons had a serious backlog of fixtures to
catch up on. Gradually Celtic's lead was clawed back, but the Parkhead
side did not seem unduly worried about the challenge from the north.
They still had to play Aberdeen twice at Parkhead. Anything short of
Aberdeen victories in both games would surely send the title to Glasgow.
The Dons hit a winning streak and, against the odds, they not only beat
Celtic twice in their Parkhead cauldron, but they did so in style.
The
closing weeks were nervy times: would Aberdeen hold their nerve? The
answer came at a sunny Easter Road in May. A win for the Dons, coupled
with Celtic dropping a point at St Mirren, would take the title north.
Aberdeen obliged their massive support with a 5-0 win that was full of a
swagger unimagined six months previously. As news came through that St
Mirren had held Celtic, the Aberdeen support erupted. The League title
had come to Pittodrie for only the second time in the club's history.
Bobby Clark recalls his memories of that day with a clarity that is hard
to imagine, considering it was over twenty years in the past: 'Winning a
cup is special, but winning the League is the true mark of a champion. I
think I would always have been disappointed if I had not managed a
league medal before I retired. We had a very good team and I think Alex
Ferguson was the person who gave us the belief to go along with our
ability. Alex, as history has shown, had that magic to make teams
believe and I think he must take the credit for making the team fulfil
its potential. 'The thing that stood out with me was the last five
minutes of the game [at Easter Road]. We had clearly beaten Hibs but the
key to the equation was the Celtic game at Love Street. I think I was
paying more attention to the fans behind my goal with their transistors.
After our game finished there was an uncertain pause and then suddenly
there was a rush of excitement as the Celtic score came through and the
reality of what we had accomplished became clear.'
The mantle of Scottish champions was a fitting way to lay recent ghosts.
The Dons had lost the 1978 Scottish Cup final and also two consecutive
League Cup finals. The side that won the League did so without Joe
Harper, who was never to fully recover from a knee injury sustained in a
League Cup-tie at Parkhead in November 1979. Drew Jarvie returned to
the side to play a cameo role that brought him vital goals in the run
in. Perhaps the jewel in the crown was Gordon Strachan, who finally
stamped himself as a player of real class. With the central-defensive
duo of Alex McLeish and Willie Miller looking imperious in every sense,
Aberdeen were on the threshold of greatness. Pittodrie underwent a major
facelift that summer when a cantilever stand was erected over the South
Terrace, transforming the ground and making it not only the first
all-seated, but also the first all-covered stadium in Britain. No longer
would patrons in that stand shiver in the biting wind or drown in the
rain. History shows 1980-81 to be a season in which the Dons had nothing
to show in terms of silverware, but it was then that they made their
debut in the European Cup. After a spirited win over Austrian champions
Memphis Vienna, they came up against the might of Liverpool in the
second round. Ferguson insists his side learned a painful lesson against
the Merseyside giants. A full-house at Pittodrie in the first leg were
stunned by McDermott's clever goal for Liverpool. Aberdeen fans have,
over the decades, unfairly gained a reputation of not backing their
side, but a Liverpool journalist covering the game recalls his belief
that had the Dons scored they would have taken the roof off. The
experience at Anfield taught rather harsher lessons. After a promising
opening, in which the Dons held their own, they fell behind and the
floodgates opened. In many respects it was an inexperienced side that
was torn apart that day, but the 0-4 defeat was still hard to take.
Alex
Ferguson had further tinkered with his side. Jim Leighton had
permanently replaced Bobby Clark, while Mark McGhee was now first-choice
striker in the wake of Steve Archibald's sale to Tottenham in a near £1
million deal. Some of the youngsters groomed in the Aberdeen tradition
had started making their presence felt. Local lads John Hewitt, Neil
Simpson and Neale Cooper were already laying claims to regular places,
and they were soon joined by Eric Black. Despite leading the race for
the title throughout the first half of the season, an inexplicable dip
in form in the early weeks of 1981 proved decisive. Once Celtic assumed
pole position, Aberdeen found nothing left in their tank. The signing of
left-winger Peter Weir from St Mirren in the 1981 close season was to
prove a master-stroke. Many observers considered Weir to be the final
piece in the Aberdeen jigsaw. The fact that the £330,000 transfer
established a new record between Scottish clubs underlines how much the
game had evolved. The very idea that the costliest Scottish transfer
would involve neither of the Old Firm as buyer or seller would today be
unthinkable. Aberdeen posted their intent when they defeated West Ham
and Southampton in a pre-season tourney at Pittodrie. Willie Miller
celebrated his first ten years with the club in a testimonial against
Tottenham. Meanwhile, Joe Harper had slipped quietly away, taking over
as player-coach at Peterhead.
The
1981-82 UEFA Cup campaign was as stunning as it was ultimately painful.
The Dons reached the third round of a European competition for the
first time, knocking out Ipswich and Arges Pitesti. Ipswich under Bobby
Robson were defending the UEFA Cup, and displayed no little arrogance
when faced with the prospect of opening their defence against the Dons. A
gripping 1-1 draw at Portman Road set up a classic Euro night in the
Pittodrie return. Robson had publicly claimed that Aberdeen could not
play so well a second time, but he had underestimated his team's
opponents, and a Peter Weir brace in the second half gave the Dons a 3-1
win. It was in the unlikely outpost of Pitesti, in the heart of an
agricultural wasteland in Romania, that the legendary 'tea-cup' throwing
tantrums of Alex Ferguson first came to light. The Dons had threatened
to squander a three-goal first-leg lead, but the tea-cup missile had the
desired effect and the Dons survived. SV Hamburg and 36-year-old
sweeper Franz Beckenbauer ought to have been despatched in the third
round, and perhaps they would have been but for a catastrophic closing
spell at Pittodrie. Aberdeen were set to take a 3-1 lead to Germany, but
suicidal late defending gave Hamburg a second goal, transformed the
tie, and in the second leg Hamburg mercilessly made Aberdeen pay. In the
League, the Dons took the race with Celtic to the last day. Facing
Rangers at Pittodrie in a dress rehearsal for the Cup final a week
later, the Dons required a five-goal win and needed Celtic to lose at
home to St Mirren. At one stage it looked on: Aberdeen had raced in to a
four-goal half-time lead, but Celtic responded to the news by turning
the screw themselves.
The
thrashing of Rangers set the Dons up nicely for the final. Never before
or since have a provincial team been such overwhelming favourites
against either of the Old Firm in a cup final. Rangers were an ageing
lot, with several players about to play their last game in blue.
Aberdeen, for their part, were an emerging force which already provided
the backbone of the Scotland national side. On paper it was no contest.
The final result of 4-1 to the Dons suggested that it was indeed so.
However, it took an exquisite shot from Alex McLeish to level the
scores, and Aberdeen only really turned the screw in extra-time. They
clearly relished the idea of trampling over tiring opponents. Perhaps
they were motivated by seeking retribution for previous defeats. In any
case, the Dons had claimed the Scottish Cup and done it in style. From
start to finish it had been a triumphal journey. John Hewitt's
nine-second goal at Motherwell in round three had set the ball rolling,
and it was the same player's deft overhead kick in the next round that
had put paid to Billy McNeill's Celtic. Aberdeen now embarked upon a
season yet to be surpassed. First of all, however, Ferguson had the task
of persuading skipper Willie Miller to sign a new contract.
Negotiations did not go smoothly, added to which Miller had also been
invited to join Rangers as captain!
Te Following Season is part of History...
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