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The Scotsman
April17, 1995, Monday
Aberdeen’sbreath of fresh air
BYLINE:By Hugh Keevins
NINETY minutes after the game which may yet turn out to be the most significant inAberdeen’shistory, the boardroom door opened and the Pittodrie directors came out. They looked like they were suffering from jet lag.There were the usual, nervous exchanges; jokes about the irregularity of their breathing and how much the goals from Duncan Shearer and Brian Irvine might have improved the directors’ respiratory disorder.
It was also a chance encounter with the group of men alleged to have met in the days beforeCeltic’svisit to Pittodrie to discuss what should be done in the event of relegation to the First Division.
Will Roy Aitken be retained as manager? Who will be the player, or players, sold to compensate for the profound loss of revenue which accompanies demotion?If the first question remains unanswerable, the second could have been made redundant.
Ian Donald,Aberdeen’schairman, and the object of abuse from supporters unnerved by the prospect of suffering a previously unknown indignity, made no attempt to avoid contact with me. Incidentally, I was waiting for a lift home rather than staking out the corridors of power.
Students of body language and amateur psychologists would have sworn that Donald looked less stressed out than in recent times. And he talked a good game, too.
There was, for him, no great mystique surrounding the remainder of the season.
“We have to win football matches. It’s as simple as that.
And if we win the next four, who knows?”
It was not only the result at Pittodrie which had corrected his breathing, but the feeling that the cold, dead hand holding downAberdeenhad suddenly warmed up again.
A late goal at Tannadice to bring Dundee United down to within a point of Aitken’s team, and further evidence of Hearts being belated players in the game of poker going on at the foot of the table, conspired to create the belief that there is a fat lady waiting to sing inAberdeen.
Aitken, the interim manager, has, with his every utterance in public, remained so positive that he was thought of as an accomplished whistler in the dark.
His vision of the future is anything but blurred, though.
“What we have done is bring the matter of relegation back into our own hands,” he said.
“The team have closed one gap and now they must close another when we play Motherwell.”
The Fir Park game tomorrow night is a test of the resolve thatAberdeen’sfellow professionals doubted they had, according toCelticmidfielder Peter Grant.
“Your name guarantees you nothing in this game, asCeltichave discovered over the last six years, and if a team goes down they have only themselves to blame,” said the man who prefaced his remarks by saying he hopedAberdeensurvived in the Premier Division for Aitken’s sake and that of the game’s already tarnished reputation.
“Fir Park will tell us ifAberdeenhave the will to survive and keep Roy in a job. Sometimes you need more than ability to survive, andAberdeen’sstomach for the fight was being called into question.”
Celticdemonstrated their failing to concentrate on the game which follows a match as important to them as the Scottish Cup semi-final win over Hibs.
Aberdeen, however, were perfectly focused on the demands of their day, including the player, Brian Irvine, who did not know he was taking part in the match until three hours before kick-off. It was only when John Inglis, the man who has deprived Irvine of his regular place, failed a fitness test that the change was made and the replacement defender scored a goal with a finish Alan Shearer would have been proud of.
Irvine, the player who is so often the brunt of jokes about his inability to kick the ball properly, was part of the reason for thinking we were watching the day when nothing could go wrong forAberdeen.
The goalkeeper, Michael Watt, had another tremulous day at the office from the first minute, when he nervously fell on a pass-back instead of kicking the ball clear, but got away with it.
The referee also missed a blatant penalty kick forCeltic- when Gary Smith clearly held a forward’s jersey – which might have levelled the score in the first half.
Now comes a four-game test ofAberdeen’scollective nerve and determination to remain in the top flight.
Verdict: Hold on. What once looked a formality has now been called into question.
Aberdeencould, given the right sequence of results, move off the bottom of the table tomorrow night when Dundee United go to Hell’s Kitchen, otherwise known as Partick Thistle’s Firhill.
If that happens, a belated surge towards safety should not be ruled out.