The natives of Aberdeen are no strangers to adverse weather conditions. Gale force winds in spring? No problem. Rain of biblical proportions in summer? Likewise. In 1978 however, a tornado struck The Granite City with such force its impact reverberated throughout the whole of Scottish football for the best part of a decade. Nothing could’ve prepared them for it and for better and worse, things would never be the same again.
Billy McNeill spent a solitary season managing Aberdeen before he upped sticks and headed back south to Glasgow to replace the legendary Jock Stein. McNeill’s hero status with Celtic, his impressive start in management and the waning of Jock Stein’s powers rendered the whole scenario an inevitable formality. The Dons had performed admirably under McNeil, finishing runners up in the league and Scottish Cup where they lost 2-1 in the final to Rangers at Hampden. Positive strides forward had been made in the twelve short months, so for Aberdeen to lose their promising manager at the first time of asking was a major disappointment. Serendipitously, it proved to be the single greatest thing to ever happen to Aberdeen Football Club.
Sir Alex Ferguson, or as he was more modestly known in those days, Alec Ferguson, was the man chosen as McNeill’s replacement.
The young Ferguson had made a big impression in his previous job with St Mirren. The Buddies played good football, they won promotion and generally punched above their weight. Ferguson had also caught the eye of the Aberdeen hierarchy not just with his footballing nous, but with his presence and the demands he put on his players, the press and even the supporters. Residents of Paisley had grown accustomed to seeing Ferguson cruising around around the town on the eve of a game, hanging out of his car window, bellowing to the locals through a megaphone to make sure that they were at Love Street the following day to cheer on their local side. To the supporters he was like a politician campaigning for election, pulling on their heart stings and promising them a better life. To the players and media he was akin to a merciless dictator.
In those embryonic stages of his managerial career, Alec Ferguson was a already force to be reckoned with. He had the aura of a much more experienced manager and his star was glaringly on the rise. Potential suitors however were slightly wary of his notorious volcanic temperament which had on more than one occasion set him on a collision course with his employers in Paisley. But Dick Donald, Aberdeen’s thrifty and devout Chairman, could not be dissuaded. He had seen enough and he had seen the future. Here was the man capable of transforming second into first and turning silver into gold.
Decades later, Ferguson would describe Jock Stein as a ‘one man university’ and it was from the Celtic legend that Ferguson would learn some of his most gainful lessons – particularly when it came to handling the press. In his first job, on the very bottom rungs of the footballing ladder with East Stirlingshire, he had incessantly drummed into his players that the local paper, The Falkirk Herald, was against them and harboured a bias towards the larger team in the town, Falkirk FC. This siege mentality, everyone against us, batten down the hatches, is straight from the first page of the Ferguson rule book on management. It is his unwavering, uncompromising doctrine. It serves as his in-house propaganda, and he fed his new players at Aberdeen spoonfuls of the stuff. In Ferguson’s direct line of fire now stood the city of his birth, Glasgow. Or more specifically, it’s two leviathan football clubs and the sycophantic, servile media pack who reported on them.
If Ferguson was to break the Old Firm stronghold he would have to have to wage war on the field and in print. When facing either of the Glasgow giants, no more was it acceptable to be a background extra. Aberdeen had to be the main protagonists. In the week leading up to a match against Celtic or Rangers, the Aberdeen players would be wound up to boiling point by Ferguson and his ruthless drill sergeant assistant, Archie Knox. Get in their face, take set pieces quickly, do everything at pace. At halftime, sprint off the park, don’t dare let them think your tired. If Celtic or Rangers had four players surrounding a referee, Ferguson demanded his Dons had five. Off the pitch, Ferguson would continue the relentless assault, spraying verbal shells at the assembled journalists. As far as perceived prejudiced reporting went, he even had a name for it – The West Coast Bias.
Ferguson was ticking time bomb and it never took much to set him off. One one such occasion, he burst into the press room, doors slamming, face as red as the Aberdeen shirt and brow furrowed. The first face he saw was a reporter synonymous with Glasgow, Hugh Keevins. ‘You fucking cunts! You don’t know anything about Aberdeen. We never see you up at Pittodrie!‘. Keevins had in fact been to watch Aberdeen several times already that season but it mattered not, the line in the sand was drawn. Them and Us.
Domestically, the first major triumph occurred in Ferguson’s second season in charge. Heading into April, Aberdeen faced the daunting prospect of two trips to Celtic Park within three weeks. General consensus decreed this would be the ultimate test of the Don’s mettle, this was where knees would tremble and the wheels come off. Fergie’s Dons however, were made of tougher stuff. They leaned directly into every ounce of the Ferguson doctrine and came away with full points on both occasions. The path ahead lay open.
In truly emphatic fashion, at a sun soaked Easter Road on the penultimate weekend of the season, the league championship was secured with a 0-5 trouncing of Hibernian. At the final whistle, Ferguson raced onto the pitch, blazer and tie flailing with in the wind with wild abandon, arms outstretched pointing to the skies. For television viewers, legendary commentator Archie McPherson proclaimed ‘Can you blame the man for going out of his mind temporarily!’
Aberdeen would also reach the semi-final of the Scottish Cup that season and lose to Dundee United in the League Cup final – quite incredibly, it would be the last final the Dons would lose during Ferguson’s tenure.
The league win ensured qualification for the following season’s European Cup. Austria Vienna were seen off in the first round before a star studded, all conquering Liverpool dealt out a punishing lesson, routing the Dons 5-0 on aggregate. Aberdeen used the thrashing as fuel to improve on the continental stage. Deep down though, Ferguson could not forgive nor forget the way he and his team were torn to shreds and sneered at by the English media. The priggish, dismissive, condescending nature of it all irked him greatly and into his little black book went the name of Liverpool Football Club.
Vengeance and vindictiveness are innate traits in the Ferguson psyche. Cross him or wrong him at your peril. In the 2021 documentary Alex Ferguson – Never Give In, Gordon Strachan said the Alex Ferguson he encountered at Aberdeen was like a wounded animal. Much of this embittered resentment was due to the treatment dealt to him during his time as a player at boyhood heroes Rangers. Ferguson grew up in the shadow of the grandiose, imposing Archibal Leitch red brick facade of Ibrox stadium. Pulling on the blue jersey of Rangers was his dream, but his move there from Dunfermline quickly unraveled into a personal nightmare. He was hung out to dry by the club following a cup final loss to Celtic and then castigated by a club employee for marrying a Catholic.
Rangers icon Willie Johnston told the Did Ye Aye? Podcast: ‘I mind Alec Ferguson, when Fergie was at Rangers. Fergie was having a hard time of it, there was bit in the paper about him marrying a Catholic or something. At that time, Fergie ended up in the third team. They bought him from Dunfermline and he ended up in the third team! He was getting on the bus to go to Hartlepool on the Saturday morning, 8 o’clock in the morning or something, and Willie Thornton was taking the third team down to Hartlepool and he said ‘by the way Alec, you’re going to hartlepool, but you’re not playing.’ They took him all the way to Hartlepool and sat him on the bench.’
The Scottish Cup final of 1982, served as the perfect platform for Ferguson to ram everything right back down the throats of the Govan giants. Throughout history, non Old Firm teams have beaten the big two in finals at Hampden, but such occasions are commonly smash and grab affairs where the rank outsiders fly by the seat of their pants, scrambling and sweating to the finish line. This was no such occasion, this was different. Aberdeen dismantled the Royal Blues by four goals to one. For doubters and scpetics, it was a message written in sporting blood that this Red Revolution, directed and dictated by one of the most unrelenting and driven Field Marshall’s the Scottish game had ever witnessed was no flash in the pan, this was the new order.
Sixty-six miles south down the A90, in the City of Discovery, Ferguson had an ally in his rebellion. Jim McLean, the austere, explosive dictator of Dundee United’s corner shop empire had also taken up arms against the Old Firm. Unofficially, the duo worked in tandem to bring down the established order. McLean and Ferguson had much in common, both were fearsome, unforgiving characters. The main difference between the pair was Ferguson operated with a blend of carrot and stick, McLean opted only for the stick. Their greatest achievements at their respective clubs would coincide in the year of 1983.
McLean’s Dundee United led the charge at home, claiming their first and only top flight title at the home of arch rivals Dundee. Ferguson’s Aberdeen set the continent ablaze in the Cup Winner’s Cup. Footballing royalty, Bayern Munich were dispatched over two legs in the quarter-final and the aristocracy of Real Madrid were slain 2-1 in the final.
In the build up to the final, Ferguson had demanded 100% focus from his players and their wives. Nothing was more important than this game, even the impending birth of Dougie Bell’s child. If the wives needed anything, they were under strict instructions to report to Ferguson before they approached their husbands.
Ferguson was confident. He had watched Real Madrid live and he wasn’t impressed. In fact, he told almost everyone willing to listen around Pittodrie that they had nothing to fear.
Following the advice of Jock Stein, on the night of the game, he played a psychological masterstroke. Stein told Ferguson to present Real Madrid’s manager, the great Alfredo Di Stefano with a bottle of whiskey when they first met on the touchline. It made Di Stefano complacent, it made him believe Ferguson and Aberdeen were happy to just be in his company. Ferguson laid out the trap and Di Stefano willingly walked into it.
Rain of biblical proportions battered down from the Gothenburg skies. Eric Black ensured the Dons got off to the perfect start after just seven minutes. But it wouldn’t last long. Despite the forewarning of the management team, Alex McLeish attempted a pass back to Jim Leighton, but it stuttered in the squelching mud before it could reach it’s intended destination. Madrid forward Santillana sniffed the danger, rounded Leighton who brought him down for a penalty which was converted by Real captain Jaunito. McLeish felt the full force of manager’s ire at half time.
The second half ebbed and flowed and the game headed to extra time.
The rain continued to lash down. With the game seemingly heading for the dreaded penalty shootout, Aberdeen broke down the left. Peter Weir pushed the ball forward to Mark McGhee who made inroads to the corner of the Real box. He dipped the shoulder, swiveled the hips and then scopped ball towards the 6 yard box. For a brief moment time stood still. The ball rotated, as if in slow motion before it connected with the head of a man in a red jersey. For those watching at home, legendary commentator Brian Moore uttered the immortal words, ‘And Hewitt waiting in the middle!’
The glory continued to flow post Gothenburg. On the home front, Rangers were defeated again in the Scottish Cup final in a match now infamous for Ferguson’s post match explosion about standards. Years later he would apologise to his players for his antics that day, but the unforeseen, bellicose tirade underlined just how far Aberdeen had come under him. Winning was no longer enough, it had to be done in a certain way.
On the European front Aberdeen rubber stamped their claim as the greatest team in Europe by defeating European Champions Hamburg in the two legged final of the Super Cup. They remain the only Scottish team to have won two European trophies.
A league and cup double was secured in 83/84 and then the title retained the following season. It remains the last time anyone outside of Glasgow has won the top flight in Scotland. At long last Ferguson finally got the his hands on the one trophy that had eluded him, the League Cup, as Hibernian were dispatched 3-0 and Hearts were vanquished by the same scoreline in the Scottish Cup Final of 1986. By this stage, supporters in Scotland had become accustomed to witnessing Willie Miller climbing the stairs at Hampden Park in all weathers to raise aloft another trophy to the adoring hoards from the north east in his signatory single armed style. Aberdeen was now as synonymous with silverware as it was with granite and seagulls.
But nothing lasts forever.
In a bitterly cold November of 1986 along came the day that Aberdeen had always dreaded and the club that Alec Ferguson had always wanted.
Since their glory day’s under Sir Matt Busby in the 50’s and 60’s, Manchester United had long since fallen from grace. They had been reduced to the status of cup team and were in need of a strong, uncompromising manager to blow away the cobwebs and awaken the giant. There was only one man for the job.
In a last ditch, desperate attempt to convince Ferguson to stay, Chairman Dick Donald offered him full ownership of the club, but his open-hearted proposal was rejected, Ferguson’s mind was made up. He cleared his office and headed south for Manchester. Aberdeen Football Club’s honours board pre-Ferguson accounted for five trophies. Post Ferguson the figure stands at four. During his tenure they claimed ten major trophies at home and abroad.
The post Ferguson come down at Pittodrie would be brutal. Ian Porterfield’s appointment as replacement came from left-field. Porterfield was a good man, but he was not the right man, because as Manchester United themselves are finding out over three decades later, there is no right man to replace Alex Ferguson. Ferguson is the drug that Manchester United can never wean themselves off of. Over the past decade, they have tried every viable route to break from their permanent state of cold turkey, but all to no avail. Their rivals have long overtaken them. At times they have been a laughing stock and a shadow of their former selves. Humiliation replaced glory. Each and every night they awaken in sweat soaked sheets to find the hallucination of Ferguson crawling the ceiling, trophy in hand, torturing them. Aberdeen Football Club can sympathise with it all.
Calum Maltman
In Episode 5 of The Football Conversations, I was joined by Michael Grant of The Times to discuss Sir Alex Ferguson’s time in charge at Aberdeen through the prism of his fantastic book on the period: Fergie Rises – How Britain’s Greatest Football Manager Was Made At Aberdeen. It is the definitive book on the era and features first hand accounts by many of the main protagonists and antagonists from this wonderful period in Scottish Football. Make sure you buy a copy in the link below:
Featured Image: Andy Edwards – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_of_Sir_Alex_Ferguson_at_Pittodrie.jpg
