Aberdeen Football Club are one of Scotland's most successful football teams, with 18 major domestic trophy wins: four League titles with 17 runners-up finishes, eight Scottish Cups with nine final defeats, and six Scottish League Cups with nine final defeats (as of March 2020). They are the only Scottish team to have won two European trophies – the European Cup Winners' Cup against Real Madrid on 11 May 1983 and the European Super Cup against the European Cup holders Hamburger SV in December 1983.
Aberdeen also have the distinction of never having been relegated: other than two seasons during World War I when they dropped out of competitive football for logistical reasons and were subsequently re-admitted, they have spent every year since 1905 as members of the top division, a record bettered only by Celtic.
Origins of the club
The Aberdeen FC was born out of the merger of three city clubs; Aberdeen, Victoria United and Orion. A public meeting on 20 March 1903 was attended by more than 1,600 citizens, and on that date the amalgamation issue was discussed and given the go-ahead. On the merger was made official and Aberdeen Football Club was born.
The merger allowed Aberdeen (wearing an all-white kit) to seriously entertain thoughts of joining the Scottish Football League, but had to settle with spending its inaugural season in the Northern League having narrowly failed to gain admission to the First Division.
Early years (1903–1917)
The new club played its first match on 15 August 1903, a 1–1 draw with Stenhousemuir - the goalscorer was William McAulay. That first season produced a win in the Aberdeenshire Cup, but only a third-place finish in the Northern League. Undaunted, the club applied for membership of the Scottish League for the following season, and were duly elected, although to the Second Division, rather than the First which the directors had aspired to.
With the arrival of League football in 1904–05, Aberdeen changed kit colours to black and gold, resulting in the new nickname of the Wasps. The club at this time was managed by Jimmy Philip, and he steered the club to a Scottish Qualifying Cup win on 26 November 1904, a 2–0 victory over Renton at Dens Park. At the end of that first season, despite having finished seventh out of 12 teams, Aberdeen were elected to the new, expanded First Division, and have been in the top tier of Scottish football ever since, a record shared with only Celtic.
Once in the First Division, however, the club's progress was steady rather than spectacular – a Scottish Cup semi-final appearance in 1908 and another in 1911 being the highlights of the pre-war period. In that season of 1910–11, Aberdeen recorded their first victories over the Old Firm, and led the league for a time, but the silverware ended up in Glasgow as was becoming customary.
Wartime affected the club as much as any other, and in spite of spending cuts and other economies, by 1917 the situation was untenable and, along with Dundee and Raith Rovers, Aberdeen dropped out of competitive football for two seasons.
Between the wars (1919–1939)
Senior football returned to the north-east of Scotland on 16 August 1919, The Dons (as they had been known since 1913) resuming with a fixture against Albion Rovers. Philip was still in charge, and continued to oversee a team capable of isolated good results, but never quite able to sustain a challenge long enough to win a trophy.
In 1923, Aberdeen were drawn against Peterhead in the Scottish Cup, and posted their record score – a 13–0 victory. The game took place in torrential rain, and it is recorded that the Aberdeen goalkeeper, Harry Blackwell, played in a waterproof coat, and spent at least part of the game sheltered under a spectator's umbrella.
One of the Wembley Wizards, Scottish international Alex Jackson, played for Aberdeen from 1924 to 1925.
Philip retired in 1924, and was replaced as manager by Paddy Travers. Travers's Aberdeen sides were no more successful than his predecessors', but he did preside over the team's first Scottish Cup final in 1937, as well as two close-season tours to South Africa, the second of which, soon after the Cup final defeat, ended in tragedy when outside-right Jackie Benyon died of peritonitis.
In November 1931, Travers unexpectedly dropped a number of first team regulars, none of whom played for the club again. It wasn't until the publication of the club's official history in the 1970s that it became clear that there had been a suspicion of a betting scandal; no action was taken against any player at the time.
Donald Colman and the 'dug-out'
Travers' trainer (first team coach in modern parlance) was a former player and fans' favourite, Donald Colman. Colman was regarded as a brilliant and innovative thinker about football, and one of his inventions remains a standard part of many football grounds to this day. Colman believed in studying players' feet as they played, and conceived the 'dug-out', a covered area set slightly below the level of the playing surface to better aid his observations. Everton visited Pittodrie soon after its introduction, and exported the idea to the English leagues, from where it spread throughout the football-playing world.
Travers left to become manager of Clyde in 1939, and was replaced by Dave Halliday. Halliday went to his ex club Queen of the South to sign inside forward George Hamilton. This would be as shrewd a signing as Halliday would ever make.1937–1955 Dave Halliday | Aberdeen | Football | Managers | Managers Detail However Halliday had barely begun his work when the Second World War halted competitive football in the United Kingdom.
Wartime (1939–1945)
The Second World War effectively shut down senior football, but Aberdeen continued to put on games featuring any players who might be in the forces and stationed nearby. Players such as Stan Mortensen and Ted Ditchburn played for Aberdeen sides in the North-Eastern League and the North-Eastern League Cup although for the last season (1945–46) the Southern League and Southern League Cup were effectively national competitions and Aberdeen competed in those. Unlike in the previous hiatus, the club were kept running, albeit on a highly improvised basis.1940 When The Football Stopped, Aberdeen FC, 18 March 2020Rangers dominated wartime football but should their titles be recognised in the record books?, The Scotsman, 21 March 2020
Post-war glory (1946–1970)
Halliday inspired Aberdeen (now playing in red shirts) to their first senior silverware in 1946, winning the Scottish League Cup (although this was a reduced wartime version of the competition known officially as the Southern League Cup), and taking his team back to Hampden the following season in the same competition, although they were defeated on this occasion. Aberdeen also reached the Scottish Cup final in that same season, 1946–47, and this time the Cup was won, Hibernian being the defeated finalists.Dave Halliday and George Hamilton profiles on "Queens Legends" on the official Queen of the South FC website
From these early successes, Halliday built a team capable of challenging for the highest honours in the Scottish game, and reached two more Scottish Cup finals, in 1953 and 1954, although both were lost. Halliday's team were not to be denied, however, and the following season, 1954–55, Aberdeen won their first Scottish League title. Their reward, however, was not to be a place in the first European Cup competition – Scotland's place was awarded to Hibs.
Halliday and Hamilton both left at the end of that championship-winning season. Halliday replaced by Davie Shaw. Aberdeen won another League Cup under his guidance, beating St Mirren in 1955–56, and reached another Scottish Cup final in 1959, but Shaw's reign was ultimately a disappointing one, and he stepped aside for another former favourite player, Tommy Pearson in 1959.
Pearson's time in charge coincided with a high turnover of players, and yielded no trophies. He retired in 1965, making way for Eddie Turnbull, who led Aberdeen to two Cup finals against Celtic, losing in 1967, but gaining revenge in 1970.
Washington Whips
During the summer of 1967, Aberdeen played a season in North America as part of a fledgling league called the United Soccer Association. This league imported twelve entire clubs from Europe and South America to play in American and Canadian cities, with each club bearing a local name. Aberdeen, playing as the "Washington Whips", won the Eastern Division title, but then lost the championship match to the Western Division winners "Los Angeles Wolves" (Wolverhampton Wanderers of England). (This FIFA-sanctioned league merged the following season with the non-sanctioned National Professional Soccer League, which had also begun in 1967, to form the North American Soccer League.)
Consistent, yet unsuccessful (1970–1979)
The Aberdeen side of the 1970s was one which regularly challenged for honours, but with the exception of the League Cup in 1976, under Ally MacLeod, was not particularly successful. During this decade, Aberdeen had 5 managers, Eddie Turnbull, Jimmy Bonthrone, Ally MacLeod, Billy McNeill and Alex Ferguson. They reached 2 more national cup finals – the Scottish Cup in 1978 under Billy McNeill and the League Cup in the following season under the new manager, the relatively unknown Alex Ferguson.
Europe and the penalty shootout
Aberdeen first played in Europe in the 1967–68 Cup Winner's Cup, having qualified as runners-up to Celtic in the Scottish Cup final the previous season. Their first tie was a 14–1 aggregate victory over KR Reykjavik, although they lost the second round tie with Standard Liège 3–2 on aggregate. As Scottish Cup holders in 1970–71, Aberdeen once again qualified for the same competition, but this time were eliminated in the first round following a 4–4 aggregate tie with Honvéd. This tie, level after extra time and also level on away goals, was decided by the first ever penalty shootout in UEFA competition history, Honved winning the shootout 5–4 in their own stadium.
Aberdeen were regular participants in UEFA competition in the 1970s, but did not proceed beyond the second round in any competition until the Ferguson years.
The glory years (1980–1986) Ferguson became manager in 1978, following the departure of McNeill to Celtic, and set about building a team which would win more in the next eight years than in the entire history of the club to that date.
Players such as Jim Leighton, Willie Miller, Alex McLeish and Gordon Strachan developed under Ferguson's guidance to be the backbone of a team with a winning mentality. Aberdeen's second League title was won in 1979–80, and this initial success was built on, with Scottish Cup wins in three successive seasons from 1982 to 1984, two more league titles in 1983–84 and 1984–85, alongside becoming only the third Scottish side to win a European trophy, with the European Cup Winners' Cup victory over Real Madrid on 11 May 1983. The club even released a song, European Song to coincide with the appearance in the Final. This was followed up with the capture of the European Super Cup in December of that year, when Hamburger SV were beaten over two legs. Aberdeen remain the only Scottish club to have won two European trophies. The following season, Aberdeen were beaten semi-finalists in the Cup Winners' Cup, denied the opportunity to defend their trophy by FC Porto.
The success of the Ferguson era may be underlined by the fact that the 1985–86 season was considered by many supporters to be a failure, with only the Scottish Cup and the League Cup won.
The Ferguson hangover (1986 – 1999)