Alex Ferguson Archives - Aberdeen Voice

Reminiscences Of Gothenburg: Prize Competition Question

Aberdeen City, Featured, History, Sport 3 Responses »

May 092013

Reminiscences of Gothenburg 1983 are appearing everywhere this week, and quite right too. At the time we thought such success would be forever. Now we know better but we have vivid, rainbow-hued, life-affirming memories never experienced by the plastic pretenders who would crow over us now.

It was quite a week thirty years ago. Here’s what David Innes remembers.

On Monday 9 May I went to the old Odeon cinema to see Local Hero, then just out but still relevant today when events just north of Balmedie are taken into account.

As I emerged blinking into the afternoon sun, the headline on the Evening Express mannie’s billboard proclaimed that Thatcher had called for the dissolution of Parliament.

Although the dissolution didn’t actually happen until Friday 13 May (feeling lucky, punk?), I still maintain that the Dons greatest triumph DIDN’T take place under the Tories since she’d already decided to go to the country. It’s just a pity that she didn’t go to one far far away from here.

We flew to Gothenburg early in the morning of Wednesday 11 May via one of the fleet of charter planes that Britannia Airways had laid on.

The airport was jam-packed with Dons fans, the duty free shop had queues a hundred yards long and all everyone seemed to buy was dreadful gold-canned Carlsberg and half bottles of Whyte and Mackays. It did the trick.

This was my first time in the air, unless you count the times that clogging midfielders of opposing Division V amateur teams dealt with my silky skills by decking me. Or maybe it was the other way round. Anyway, somewhere above Great Western Road, a gap in the cloud appeared. Through it, I saw an Alexanders yellow service bus looking like a Matchbox toy. I wasn’t happy, but a giant swig of the duty free worked wonders.

Gothenburg was overcast. It was still mid-morning local time. A few Real fans greeted us as we came off the airport bus. One of them was El Bombo, the geezer with the drum in the Ullevi later on. One of our crew swapped his Dons scarf for El Bombo’s purple and white Real one.

We had Carlsberg for lunch and went to explore the city. Reds awye, the strains of Here we go, here we go, here we go and The Northern Lights seeming to be in the air everywhere, along with that dreadful European Song.

It began to rain. Hale water. Hosing it doon. It was like every Monday holiday of the year rolled into one. I’m not sure that it’s stopped yet. My trainers are still sipin.

In the hotel, I changed into my new Dons shirt, bought in Simpsons Sports at the weekend. “A special one, wi writin on it”, the Simpsons’ shop quine had announced. I still have it. It’s worth a fortune due to its rarity, but it no longer fits me. I guess it must have shrunk in the wash. Or something.

Something historic and emotional and ace and fab happened out on the pitch

We gathered in the bar to await the bus to the stadium and got a rebuke from the BBC’s Gordon Hewitt who we’d accused of being an Old Firm gloryhunter. He wasn’t. He’d paid for his own trip as a Dons fan and had taken his nephew from Oldmeldrum with him.

We bought him beer after the game as an apology. He waxed lyrical about our full backs Rougvie and McMaster, both playing out of position, but his heroes of the evening.

It was raining outside. We smuggled our half bottles into the stadium. Others were allowed to bring in their entire beery carry-outs when the Swedish Police saw, “how much that beer means to you sir” as thrifty Reds decided to neck a dozen cans there and then rather than dump them in the skip. I was the beneficiary of my old friend from Keith, Beel Murdoch’s stash of McEwans Export, a welcome change from bloody Carlsberg.

Something historic and emotional and ace and fab happened out on the pitch, I think. Bedlam broke out around me at the final whistle. I removed myself from the mass greet-along, tear-athon terracing cuddle being simultaneously enjoyed by 12000 delirious Reds just to soak (aye…) it all in, to take a mental photo of the mental goings-on and the spectacular denouement taking place out there.

My sister’s kitchen still has a blurry Instamatic photo of the scoreboard reading Aberdeen 2 Real Madrid 1 in pride of place. It still gives me an emotional tug every time I see it.

Back in the hotel we drank Swedish beer, commiserated with the Real fans who were very decent people, celebrated with the locals who had taken the Dons to their hearts and asked about getting a shottie in the swimming pool, politely turned down. Maybe the hotel staff thought we were wet enough already, on the inside as well as the outside.

We stayed up all night drinking bloody Carlsberg, reliving the triumph, planning excitedly for future trips to European Cup finals and ended up playing football on a disused railway line across the motorway from the hotel at 0500.

A couple of hours sleep and off we headed to the St Machar Bar to celebrate with something other than bloody Carlsberg

Gothenburg Airport was like Merkland Road East. The spirit was akin to “the first Hogmanay aifter the war” as Scotland The What? Might have put it.

We greeted friends we’d only seen a couple of days before like heroes returning from El Alamein. We tried to offer them a drink. “Nae bloody Carlsberg?” they enquired before refusing politely.

We flew home and got to Dyce only half an hour after we’d left due to the time difference.

All the papers were bought, even the scummy sleazy salacious tabloids and right wing loonypress. They’re still in my loft. A couple of hours sleep and off we headed to the St Machar Bar to celebrate with something other than bloody Carlsberg. Jim Alexander, the licensee, even stood his hand, almost as remarkable as the Dons’ win.

Then we raced to Pittodrie and waited hours to see our heroes, who had taken forever to wend their way through the suburbs and a city centre crammed full of north-easterners delirious at the triumph.

We celebrated for weeks. Cans of Carlsberg seemed to multiply in the hastily-discarded kitbags we brought home. I doubt that another can of the goddam vile brew was ever drunk by anyone who returned with any.

We thought that this high would last forever, but it didn’t. Ach weel. We had our few years in the sun, skelping arses all over Europe, dominating at home and generally just being ace.

We’re still ace, of course. We are the chosen ones.

Now, about that something historic and emotional and ace and fab that happened out on the pitch…

Richard Gordon has written beautifully about the entire history of that battle campaign in The Glory of Gothenburg, and thanks to Black and White Publishing, we have two paperback copies to offer as prizes to readers of Voice.

Answer me this, Reds – Who tripped as he dashed from the dugout at the final whistle in the Ullevi Stadium and was trampled all over by his fellow occupants of the dug-out?

Post your answer to competition@aberdeenvoice.com .

The first two correct entries will get the books.

Please include your name and postal address when you respond to us, it’s really difficult for the postie to deliver to an e-mail address.

Come on you Reds.

Comments enabled – see comments box below. Note, all comments will be moderated.

Old Susannah No. 66 – Ground Hog Day

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Creative Writing, Environment, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Feb 032012

It’s the American holiday Ground Hog Day this week, and Old Susannah wonders if she’s not reading the same old stories over and over again in the local news. By Suzanne Kelly.

Happy Ground Hog Day! In America people eagerly await the movements of groundhogs on 2 February (everyone has to have a hobby I guess), and allegedly can predict whether there will be an early spring by what the little things do. Ground Hog Day was also a Bill Murray film wherein he kept reliving the same events over and over again.

As I read the Evening Express and the Press and Journal, I wonder if the same old stories aren’t coming back again and again just like Ground Hog Day. Another car crash, more pictures of cute babies and cute pets, potholes and personal health stories I’d rather not read.

And of course Union Terrace Gardens stories have sprouted up faster than the ‘rare’ pine forest the architects have now drawn fully mature in their ‘vision’ of the concrete future. Guess the pines should appease all those environmental-type people.

I had really wanted to ‘keep off the grass’ and spend one week not writing about the City Gardens Project. However, the issue continues to dominate our local newspapers, other than a few car accidents and cute pictures of babies and/or pets, there’s nothing else in the local news.

On the other hand our bus fares have gone up – by about £150 per year for weekly pass users. This is to pay for all the improvements – the increased reliability, cleanliness, and improved frequency and so on that you are experiencing. No doubt you likewise received a pay rise of 15% or more, so you don’t mind stumping up more for First Buses. I hear their owners are a bit hard hit by the recession, and heating mansions isn’t as cheap as it used to be.

Last week I was one of the deputees at the City Council’s great vote on shovelling money into the City Gardens Project. If you’re interested in what I had to say, here’s a link: http://oldsusannahsjournal.yolasite.com/

I spoke for 10 minutes, and answered 10 minutes of questions from our elected officials. Councillor McCaig repeated the promise made by Alex Haig the Scottish Infrastructure Secretary that the project will NOT go ahead if the people vote against it in the referendum. We shall see.

But back to the Ground Hog Day theme. Sir Alex Ferguson has stepped up to the plate concerning Union Terrace Gardens: he’s in favour of the garden scheme (and ‘scheme’ seems like the operative word) going ahead, per the Evening Express. But haven’t we heard from him on this score before? Yes we have – several times. You have a feeling of déjà vu for a reason.

You can usually tell something is a fact if an authority figure tells you it is true

The pro City Gardens teams are still ramping up with their fantastic, well-planned campaigns. The people in Aberdeenshire were the first to receive the glossy, beautiful (not at all fifties retro, dated, overly busy) A3 colour brochures telling them why they must vote for the City Gardens Project.

It was such a heart-breaking pity to realise that no one in the Shire gets a vote.

Easy mistake. I just wonder exactly who has paid for these brochures and this little mistake. But this lovely piece of campaigning literature (for which we don’t know who wrote, created, paid for) leads nicely to a definition or two.

Facts: (plural noun; Eng) data based on measurable, demonstrable truths and observable phenomenon.

A triangle has three sides. The sun rises in the East and sets in the West. The City Gardens Project will create 6,500 jobs and make Aberdeen £122,000,000 every year for about 20 years. All these are examples of facts.

You can usually tell something is a fact if an authority figure tells you it is true. If you read something in print, it must be true as well. All those lovely brochures that went to the Shire residents (who can’t vote on the issue) tell you to vote for for 6,500 jobs and all the millions of pounds the Teletubbie Park will bring.

Who would vote against these great things? It’s not as if these figures for an as-yet unfinished design with no price tag on it are just wild, bloated fictional guesses paid for by, er, organisations that want this building project. Or are they?

My favourite part of the brochure is the transparent boy running through the flower bed in front of the theatre. If it were to scale, the wee lad is about 27 feet tall.

If you still aren’t sure what is fact and what is fiction, here’s an example from ACSEF meeting minutes from 22 March 2010:-

“Reassurance was given that the consultation report commissioned by Scottish Enterprise on behalf of ACSEF will be independent, and the consultation process had been robust and transparent”.

Even if the electronic voting went a bit strange, and even if all of the entities involved in ‘reassuring’ that the report would be ‘independent’ wanted the garden project to go ahead, it was all ‘robust and transparent’. (and that’s a fact).

You can’t say Aberdeen doesn’t have its fair share of celebrities

Another favourite fact of mine was when Sue Bruce left Aberdeen and claimed in a press release that our city had a budget surplus of a few million pounds after she’d done her bit. (Yes, I miss her, too). Pity the budget surplus didn’t even last as long as she did here.

Celebrity: (noun or adjective) fame, or being famous. You can’t say Aberdeen doesn’t have its fair share of celebrities: There is Sir Alex Ferguson, Annie Lennox, Scotty from Star Trek, an’ tha quine fae Torry wi the accent naebody kens fa’s on ‘River City’ [Editor: am I getting the hang of Doric yet? Suz].

But alas: no longer can Aberdeen lay claim to being the home of ‘Willie’ – school janitor from ‘The Simpsons’. Willie is apparently from The Orkneys. The Evening Express carried this exclusive this week – I think they did a telephone interview with Willie or something. DOH!

At least we still have Mr Scott, and of course our own talking cactus, Spike. Neither has yet released statements through their agents or directly as to their view of Union Terrace Gardens. Annie Lennox has in the past stated that it’s up to Aberdonians to vote for what they want, but that she is a supporter of the gardens as they are.

She is clearly not as vibrant, dynamic and forward-looking as the much more hip Sir Alex Ferguson. Sir Alex took a break from throwing football boots at players’ heads long enough to yet again pop up in the press in favour of the skateboard park – sorry granite web. In the Evening Express Sir Alex is reported as saying:-

“I would urge everyone not to be scared of change and to look upon this as an opportunity and something which will allow Aberdeen to be favourably compared with cities both in the UK and further afield”

Well, we can safely assume his friend Stewart Milne looks at the gardens as being ‘an opportunity.’

Perhaps Sir Alex has hit it on the head (which he’s good at doing): I’m really just scared of change. I’m not scared of killing off the existing wildlife by removing the vital feeding and living grounds the wildlife depends on. I’m not scared of destroying beautiful, listed, healthy 200 year-old trees that clean the surrounding air. I’m not even scared of the city taking a £70 million (or probably more) gamble on an as-yet untried financial gambit: Nope, I’m just scared of change.

As to how the granite web will make Aberdeen compare to other cities and places, I’d suggest that Milton Keynes, Siberian work camps and Ceausescu’s Romanian architectural projects would be the best place to start.

I think I’ll leave it there for now. Keep a look out for your full colour brochure from the pro City Garden Project now, won’t you. It should arrive any day now (if you live in Yorkshire). You may wonder who printed it and who stands proudly behind its facts. You may wonder for quite some time, as they didn’t bother to say who they were on this flyer.

There is a helpful web address on it, even if it doesn’t work at the time of writing, I’m sure that’s just another one of the few dozen small errors that’s hit the publicity campaign.

Question: if the people supporting this project are throwing your money around on inaccurate full colour A3 leaflets that are going to the wrong houses today, what will they do with a giant architectural project tomorrow?

– Next week: disappearing press releases, Press Complaints Commission, and Code of Practice for Public Relations Agencies – and more.

On Fire with Fergie

Aberdeen City, Articles, Featured, News, Opinion, Sport, Sport No Responses »

Aug 132010

On Fire With Fergie – Me, My Dad and the Dons – Stuart Donald.

Hachette Scotland 338 pages £12.99

As promised last week, when Aberdeen Voice appeared to be unique in giving media coverage to the launch of this and the Heritage Trust’s books, Voice’s David Innes, rises from his settee where he’s been glued to On Fire With Fergie since he took it home.

Stuart Donald reads from On Fire With Fergie.

Stuart Donald’s three-pronged approach in writing On Fire With Fergie, documenting his personal rites of passage story of falling in and out of love with the 80s Dons, recording those incredible victories and celebrations whilst paying tribute to his late dad, Gordon Donald, “The Chancellor” to whom the book is dedicated, is beautifully successful.

Although of much older vintage than the author, I can identify with almost every sentence of Stuart’s narrative. The childhood naivety, the swelling hope, the tears, the tantrums, the eventual realisation that The Man in the grotesque guise of the Old Firm will flex his financial muscle, call in old favours and render our spike on the success graph as a temporary and unsustainable blip. But by hookey, it was fun while it lasted.

This is much more than a fitba book – it’s a well-written tale of familial relationships, adolescence, quiet rebellion and growing up and it’s among the best terracing-derived accounts of club football that I have read.

The passages of reported and remembered conversations, especially those featuring Donald senior are rib-tickling and have display stout granite-like profundity typical of wise NE Everydad. That they are reproduced in Doric renders them all the more relevant to the Dons and all the more pointed. I think that most Dons fans would have been able to relate to the sage but passionate Chancellor. It would surely have been a pleasure to have known him.

It’s heartening too that Stuart Donald is unafraid to say what he (and most Dons fans) thought thirty years ago – in turn describing in scornful terms Old Firm violence and bigotry, peer jealousy, despicable Dundee United’s status as a minor irritant to the Dons with whom they were always crazily bracketed by lazy hacks and who always crumpled, papier mache-like, in the face of the Old Firm when the chips were down. I trust he has not mellowed on any of these scores, for these have not changed much.

This is much more than a fitba book – it’s a well-written tale of familial relationships, adolescence, quiet rebellion and growing up and it’s among the best terracing-derived accounts of club football that I have read. I recommend it to anyone who lived through those sweet, heady days or to anyone curious about how fans viewed the most glorious period of our shared fitba and community heritage.