RF Front Page Archive August 2000

August 2000

30th August - There has been a considerable amount of piffle spoken in today's local papers about poor Stewartie Milne and how he's holding the club together single handed by filling in for the man he appointed and he sacked as Chief Exec. Just stop and think about it folks: Aberdeen FC has one of the biggest football business organisations in Britain; they employ more people than the English FA; yet if Stewart Milne is away from Pittodrie the place will crumble? What if he gets run down by that bus that is always out to get people? What if he's flying to London and his plane crashes? Will AFC shut up shop and cease to exist? Of course not. Other people in the organisation will keep it running.

If Milne is so essential to AFC why is there no succession plan in case something does happen to him? That is a castigation of his inability to create an organisation. That is another reason why his fellow directors should be taking a long hard look at his role in the Club and suggesting to him that if he can't get it organised he should step aside and allow change. His only argument today is some nonsense about people thinking that there is someone out there with megabucks when, in fact, there isn't. The point is that we all know there is no one like that yet Milne steadfastly refuses to explore other avenues of generating income to support the team on the park. This will run and run.

30th August - As promised yesterday, here are the slides from the ISG, AFC 2000, AFCSA joint press conference calling for the resignation of Stewart Milne. The rebuttals appearing in the press today are clearly prepared by the "PR" department at Pittodrie and have no merit and say nothing new. The Association of Supporters Clubs stating that the other groups were being short sighted takes the biscuit, they have no vision whatsoever - what exactly is it they think has been achieved under Milne?

29th August - The AFC ISG, AFC Shareholders Association and AFC 2000 today called for Stewart Milne to resign. Milne's growing list of failures to deliver on empty promises and the spiraling debts since he came to power were sited along with the appalling football record. TRF will bring you the slides from the the press conference tomorrow. They are damning in every respect and TRF agrees - Milne must go. It is up to his fellow board members to make this happen and it is also up to them to find new blood who will start to reignite our club and get it geared up to be a force to be reckoned with once more. 29th August - Good news on the Cup Final tickets front, it isn't often that the SFA see sense and even less frequent that they actually publicly play fair. A 50/50 split no matter who is taking part in a final is the only way of ensuring the possibility of neutrality at the national stadium. Unfortunately the Press & Journal soured the news somewhat by crediting Gordon Bennett and the AFC Association of Supporters Clubs with playing a major roll in this. GB certainly played his part, publicly airing his views and pressing for change through football channels. What, though, did the other lot do? Practically zip is my recollection but to read Jack Douglas's remarks in the paper you'd think his ineffectual committee had practically swung the change single handed. The truth of the matter is that the ISG and Shareholders Association along with TRF went right to the legal wire to try and get things changed ( see full report ) expending a lot of dosh en route and got not one iota of backing or encouragement from the then leader of the AFC Association of Supporters Clubs then chairman, Euan Chisholm. This reporting in the P&J is the kind of misinformation that has become rife in the Milne era.

29th August - Great to see the Under-21's getting off to a flyer against Motherwell. 7-1 was a sound scoreline in anybody's book and it could have been even more with a little luck. let's hope the lads can keep up that pace throughout the season and bring us some records to be proud of. 28th August - Hicham Zerouali's leg break is a real sickener. The fact that Ged Brannan got away with the hatchet job makes it all the worse. Referees have allowed Zerouali to be the victim of brutality before, not least when we played the sand dancers in the Cup at Dens Park last season. It looks to TRF as though Sandy Clark has a lot to answer for here because he accused Zero of conning refs a few games before that Cup tie and Zero has had no protection since. Of course, since this is a mere Aberdeen player we are discussing, the Glasgow press will say little, if anything about Brannan's savagery in making a tackle he knew couldn't succeed. Brannan plays on, Zero waits for months to get another game. Justice? No bloody chance!

27th August - The Sunday papers have a lot of stuff about the Dandies ongoing predicament. The hard line from most quarters is that Stewart Milne is taking us nowhere and ought to step down. The chairman of the Association of Supporters Clubs says the fans have no influence and can do nothing - we're doomed. TRF says Milne has had his chance and is now allowing the club to drift into ever murkier waters. He came out on Radio Scotland and said that he can't find funds to give the manager, but that just underlines his ineffectual tenancy. other than that he just wheeled out the same old platitudes and avoided answering the crucial questions.

We need leadership and direction, not waffle. We need innovation and honesty, not stagnation and evasion. We need charisma not couthy. Enough is enough. let's get things sorted at the top and restore the Dons to respectability and greatness.

25th August - Fresh from the club's latest entry into the record books, the Dons must forget the humiliation and get wound up to go to Motherwell on Sunday and grab three points. Apart from the ever present desire by TRF to see the Dandies shape up and win, it would give us more than the usual amount of pleasure to see Tam (who does he really support) Cowan squirm with displeasure at his (alleged) team getting turned over by the side he most loathes and despises.

20th August - Has John McRuvie taken leave of his senses? OBE doesn't usually get into the Beach End in time for the pre match round-the-stands cheer fest, so he was shocked yesterday when he discovered that the Man That Does the Speakers was asking us to cheer Angus the bleeding Bull! Black mark McRuvie! We are there to cheer the Dandies, not some oversized soft toy that bears no relationship to Aberdeen's fan culture. Ditch the bull, cut the bullshit and just get us to cheer the the Dons. 19th August - The youngest Aberdeen side in many a long day were incredibly unlucky to go down to Hibs today. In fact, they might well have gotten at least a draw out of the game if luck had smiled on them at all kindly. Dons' fans can take pride in the way the ten man team fought for so long and looked much the better side throughout the bulk of the match. Aberdeen have much more to look forward to with these kids developing than most clubs in the Premier League.

18th August - Saturday's match against Hibees should be our toughest test so far and we need the players and the fans to be right up for it. All the pundits are forecasting a home defeat, but that's no use to us and Redz should never go into a match contemplating a gubbing. Let's hope the Dandies get stuck in from the start and pull off the surprise of the day by claiming victory. The terraces need to belt out their support and demonstrate that we can party just as well at home as when we're away, the Hibs fans'll be full of themselves and it'll be great if we are the ones to pull the rug from under them - even if Eck is their boss.

14th August - The early departure of Gordon Bennett doesn't leave Pittodrie in a healthy state. It wasn't in a healthy state before he cam either. With Stewart Milne resuming the helm for the next couple of months, many people won't be too optimistic that anything'll change for the better now. Whatever happens in the short term, if we are going to have another Chief Exec we need a dynamic one who is innovative in his thinking and strong enough to deal with the dead wood that still permeates the behind the scenes legion that are apparently needed to run AFC's business. Oh for the day when all this website feels the need to discuss is football and the future prospects of the mighty Dons, all this backroom stuff could drive an editor to take up crochet work for a pastime.

13th August - All this press talk about celtic and rangers leaving Scottish football (sort of) for an Atlantic League is old hat. The journos are trying to make it sound like something shockingly new but we have been hearing about it for ages already. If it happens - good - let them piss off and leave the rest of Scottish football to get on with the game and forget all that sectarian, triumphalist claptrap that we have had to put up with for the best part of a century. All the propaganda that we depend on them for income is just so much doggie-doos, in the case of AFC, we allow them far too many seats at about 4,000 but they actually drive home fans away because of their insufferable cacophony of bile. Just look at the population of the Merkland Stand for a game against, say, Hearts and compare it to one against either half of the old scum. Plus they drive up the cost of policing into the bargain. If anybody was to do the economics, they would ban celtic and rangers fans altogether and do more to encourage Dandies into the ground in greater numbers. You know it makes sense.

10th August - Yet again, the Dons have demonstrated why the board's refusal to invest in a rock-solid defender is a totally false economy. We urgently need somebody in there who'll marshal the troops and maintain concentration throughout 90 minutes. Where does Stewart Milne think we are currently going? 8th August - Fox Ache! Smiffy's back in the Premier League replacing Luggie. Just wait for the Passbacks to start surging up the table. They could well get off the bottom and into last place.

7th August - Are the short arms and deep pockets of the Pittodrie board to deprive us of Eoin Jess (footballer) then? Jess's statement about his future was clear enough today and all he is wanting is what every fan of the Dons wants - a demonstration of ambition by the people running AFC. Milne promised us that we would see the signing of three (later changed to two or three) players over the summer. What we got was the usual result of a Stewart Milne promise - absolutely zip. Inglis doesn't count (perhaps can't) as a signing and nor do the young lads drafted into the youth squad. C'mon Wigster - unleash the purse stings and let Ebbe get in a couple of players to encourage Jess to stay and the fans to keep turning up.

TRF 40 will be on sale outside Pittodrie at the Hearts match. Don't miss it or we won't sell any. See ya there.

5th August - Dons 2 - Buddies 1 Fit rare, two games into the season and we haven't lost. Plenty room for improvement but it doesn't look as though we'll be as bad as last season.
4th August - On the eve of our first home match of the season, TRF would just like to say......

4th August - Our Longside correspondent reports that the u-21 game up there last night was attended by leading members of the ISG who watched a tidy performance from the French trialist but found it hard to assess him against such opposition. The 3-1 victory was watched by several of the management team and Bloo Toon says that there were some good looking youngsters featuring (didn't say if they were any good a football though). 3rd August - Now we are seeing just how low we can go. We are reduced to signing up players that we have previously got rid of! John 'Zeus' Iglis left Pittodrie barely 18 months ago and now we are sufficiently desperate that we have to bring him back on a short contract. Let's hope that Ebbe can get more out of the guy than previous managers, because in his 122 games for us before, he managed to get through every match without a hair out of place. Mind you he can't be any worse than Derek Whyte and the 19 yellows and 2 reds he picked up playing for us weren't all for preening or dissent. Hey! If this piece develops any further we'll start to like him - fox ache!

Rumours are flooding the Northeast of Scotland that Willie Miller will shortly be drafted into the team and Bobby Connor is looking out his blouse. Jim Bett will be along presently if he can get out of his sleeping bag and Davie Robb is on the road from Aboyne right now.

1st August - When the news broke on Reuters that Gordon bennett was resigning as general manager at Pittodrie, the editorial staff at TRF didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Here is a guy who arrived in a blaze of publicity and was hailed as the fiscal saviour of AFC but who rapidly managed (amongst a couple of positive moves) to bring heaps of adverse publicity on a club that was already a laughing stock. Will he be remembered for his detailed weekly newsletters or the toaster incident? Will it be the revision of the match pricing structure or being stopped by the police? The next history of the Club will tell, but it all depends whether that history is written by the AFC PR department or somebody who chooses to research the newspapers. One thing is sure - Bennett took the heat off Stewart Milne for a while, now the focus moves to the boardroom and the question is already being asked: Didn't they hang ontpo that shortlist of candidates that they drew up last autumn?

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	30th August - There has been a considerable amount of piffle spoken in today's local papers about poor Stewartie Milne and how he's holding the club together single handed by filling in for the man he appointed and he sacked as Chief Exec. Just stop and think about it folks: Aberdeen FC has one of the biggest football business organisations in Britain; they employ more people than the English FA; yet if Stewart Milne is away from Pittodrie the place will crumble? What if he gets run down by that bus that is always out to get people? What if he's flying to London and his plane crashes? Will AFC shut up shop and cease to exist? Of course not. Other people in the organisation will keep it running. If Milne is so essential to AFC why is there no succession plan in case something does happen to him? That is a castigation of his inability to create an organisation. That is another reason why his fellow directors should be taking a long hard look at his role in the Club and suggesting to him that if he can't get it organised he should step aside and allow change. His only argument today is some nonsense about people thinking that there is someone out there with megabucks when, in fact, there isn't. The point is that we all know there is no one like that yet Milne steadfastly refuses to explore other avenues of generating income to support the team on the park. This will run and run.
30th August - As promised yesterday, here are the slides from the ISG, AFC 2000, AFCSA joint press conference calling for the resignation of Stewart Milne. The rebuttals appearing in the press today are clearly prepared by the "PR" department at Pittodrie and have no merit and say nothing new. The Association of Supporters Clubs stating that the other groups were being short sighted takes the biscuit, they have no vision whatsoever - what exactly is it they think has been achieved under Milne?
29th August - The AFC ISG, AFC Shareholders Association and AFC 2000 today called for Stewart Milne to resign. Milne's growing list of failures to deliver on empty promises and the spiraling debts since he came to power were sited along with the appalling football record. TRF will bring you the slides from the the press conference tomorrow. They are damning in every respect and TRF agrees - Milne must go. It is up to his fellow board members to make this happen and it is also up to them to find new blood who will start to reignite our club and get it geared up to be a force to be reckoned with once more.	29th August - Good news on the Cup Final tickets front, it isn't often that the SFA see sense and even less frequent that they actually publicly play fair. A 50/50 split no matter who is taking part in a final is the only way of ensuring the possibility of neutrality at the national stadium. Unfortunately the Press & Journal soured the news somewhat by crediting Gordon Bennett and the AFC Association of Supporters Clubs with playing a major roll in this. GB certainly played his part, publicly airing his views and pressing for change through football channels. What, though, did the other lot do? Practically zip is my recollection but to read Jack Douglas's remarks in the paper you'd think his ineffectual committee had practically swung the change single handed. The truth of the matter is that the ISG and Shareholders Association along with TRF went right to the legal wire to try and get things changed ( see full report ) expending a lot of dosh en route and got not one iota of backing or encouragement from the then leader of the AFC Association of Supporters Clubs then chairman, Euan Chisholm. This reporting in the P&J is the kind of misinformation that has become rife in the Milne era.
29th August - Great to see the Under-21's getting off to a flyer against Motherwell. 7-1 was a sound scoreline in anybody's book and it could have been even more with a little luck. let's hope the lads can keep up that pace throughout the season and bring us some records to be proud of.	28th August - Hicham Zerouali's leg break is a real sickener. The fact that Ged Brannan got away with the hatchet job makes it all the worse. Referees have allowed Zerouali to be the victim of brutality before, not least when we played the sand dancers in the Cup at Dens Park last season. It looks to TRF as though Sandy Clark has a lot to answer for here because he accused Zero of conning refs a few games before that Cup tie and Zero has had no protection since. Of course, since this is a mere Aberdeen player we are discussing, the Glasgow press will say little, if anything about Brannan's savagery in making a tackle he knew couldn't succeed. Brannan plays on, Zero waits for months to get another game. Justice? No bloody chance!
27th August - The Sunday papers have a lot of stuff about the Dandies ongoing predicament. The hard line from most quarters is that Stewart Milne is taking us nowhere and ought to step down. The chairman of the Association of Supporters Clubs says the fans have no influence and can do nothing - we're doomed. TRF says Milne has had his chance and is now allowing the club to drift into ever murkier waters. He came out on Radio Scotland and said that he can't find funds to give the manager, but that just underlines his ineffectual tenancy. other than that he just wheeled out the same old platitudes and avoided answering the crucial questions. We need leadership and direction, not waffle. We need innovation and honesty, not stagnation and evasion. We need charisma not couthy. Enough is enough. let's get things sorted at the top and restore the Dons to respectability and greatness.
25th August - Fresh from the club's latest entry into the record books, the Dons must forget the humiliation and get wound up to go to Motherwell on Sunday and grab three points. Apart from the ever present desire by TRF to see the Dandies shape up and win, it would give us more than the usual amount of pleasure to see Tam (who does he really support) Cowan squirm with displeasure at his (alleged) team getting turned over by the side he most loathes and despises.
20th August - Has John McRuvie taken leave of his senses? OBE doesn't usually get into the Beach End in time for the pre match round-the-stands cheer fest, so he was shocked yesterday when he discovered that the Man That Does the Speakers was asking us to cheer Angus the bleeding Bull! Black mark McRuvie! We are there to cheer the Dandies, not some oversized soft toy that bears no relationship to Aberdeen's fan culture. Ditch the bull, cut the bullshit and just get us to cheer the the Dons.	19th August - The youngest Aberdeen side in many a long day were incredibly unlucky to go down to Hibs today. In fact, they might well have gotten at least a draw out of the game if luck had smiled on them at all kindly. Dons' fans can take pride in the way the ten man team fought for so long and looked much the better side throughout the bulk of the match. Aberdeen have much more to look forward to with these kids developing than most clubs in the Premier League.
18th August - Saturday's match against Hibees should be our toughest test so far and we need the players and the fans to be right up for it. All the pundits are forecasting a home defeat, but that's no use to us and Redz should never go into a match contemplating a gubbing. Let's hope the Dandies get stuck in from the start and pull off the surprise of the day by claiming victory. The terraces need to belt out their support and demonstrate that we can party just as well at home as when we're away, the Hibs fans'll be full of themselves and it'll be great if we are the ones to pull the rug from under them - even if Eck is their boss.
14th August - The early departure of Gordon Bennett doesn't leave Pittodrie in a healthy state. It wasn't in a healthy state before he cam either. With Stewart Milne resuming the helm for the next couple of months, many people won't be too optimistic that anything'll change for the better now. Whatever happens in the short term, if we are going to have another Chief Exec we need a dynamic one who is innovative in his thinking and strong enough to deal with the dead wood that still permeates the behind the scenes legion that are apparently needed to run AFC's business. Oh for the day when all this website feels the need to discuss is football and the future prospects of the mighty Dons, all this backroom stuff could drive an editor to take up crochet work for a pastime.
	13th August - All this press talk about celtic and rangers leaving Scottish football (sort of) for an Atlantic League is old hat. The journos are trying to make it sound like something shockingly new but we have been hearing about it for ages already. If it happens - good - let them piss off and leave the rest of Scottish football to get on with the game and forget all that sectarian, triumphalist claptrap that we have had to put up with for the best part of a century. All the propaganda that we depend on them for income is just so much doggie-doos, in the case of AFC, we allow them far too many seats at about 4,000 but they actually drive home fans away because of their insufferable cacophony of bile. Just look at the population of the Merkland Stand for a game against, say, Hearts and compare it to one against either half of the old scum. Plus they drive up the cost of policing into the bargain. If anybody was to do the economics, they would ban celtic and rangers fans altogether and do more to encourage Dandies into the ground in greater numbers. You know it makes sense.
10th August - Yet again, the Dons have demonstrated why the board's refusal to invest in a rock-solid defender is a totally false economy. We urgently need somebody in there who'll marshal the troops and maintain concentration throughout 90 minutes. Where does Stewart Milne think we are currently going?	8th August - Fox Ache! Smiffy's back in the Premier League replacing Luggie. Just wait for the Passbacks to start surging up the table. They could well get off the bottom and into last place.
	7th August - Are the short arms and deep pockets of the Pittodrie board to deprive us of Eoin Jess (footballer) then? Jess's statement about his future was clear enough today and all he is wanting is what every fan of the Dons wants - a demonstration of ambition by the people running AFC. Milne promised us that we would see the signing of three (later changed to two or three) players over the summer. What we got was the usual result of a Stewart Milne promise - absolutely zip. Inglis doesn't count (perhaps can't) as a signing and nor do the young lads drafted into the youth squad. C'mon Wigster - unleash the purse stings and let Ebbe get in a couple of players to encourage Jess to stay and the fans to keep turning up.
TRF 40 will be on sale outside Pittodrie at the Hearts match. Don't miss it or we won't sell any. See ya there. 5th August - Dons 2 - Buddies 1 Fit rare, two games into the season and we haven't lost. Plenty room for improvement but it doesn't look as though we'll be as bad as last season.	4th August - On the eve of our first home match of the season, TRF would just like to say......
4th August - Our Longside correspondent reports that the u-21 game up there last night was attended by leading members of the ISG who watched a tidy performance from the French trialist but found it hard to assess him against such opposition. The 3-1 victory was watched by several of the management team and Bloo Toon says that there were some good looking youngsters featuring (didn't say if they were any good a football though).	3rd August - Now we are seeing just how low we can go. We are reduced to signing up players that we have previously got rid of! John 'Zeus' Iglis left Pittodrie barely 18 months ago and now we are sufficiently desperate that we have to bring him back on a short contract. Let's hope that Ebbe can get more out of the guy than previous managers, because in his 122 games for us before, he managed to get through every match without a hair out of place. Mind you he can't be any worse than Derek Whyte and the 19 yellows and 2 reds he picked up playing for us weren't all for preening or dissent. Hey! If this piece develops any further we'll start to like him - fox ache! Rumours are flooding the Northeast of Scotland that Willie Miller will shortly be drafted into the team and Bobby Connor is looking out his blouse. Jim Bett will be along presently if he can get out of his sleeping bag and Davie Robb is on the road from Aboyne right now.
1st August - When the news broke on Reuters that Gordon bennett was resigning as general manager at Pittodrie, the editorial staff at TRF didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Here is a guy who arrived in a blaze of publicity and was hailed as the fiscal saviour of AFC but who rapidly managed (amongst a couple of positive moves) to bring heaps of adverse publicity on a club that was already a laughing stock. Will he be remembered for his detailed weekly newsletters or the toaster incident? Will it be the revision of the match pricing structure or being stopped by the police? The next history of the Club will tell, but it all depends whether that history is written by the AFC PR department or somebody who chooses to research the newspapers. One thing is sure - Bennett took the heat off Stewart Milne for a while, now the focus moves to the boardroom and the question is already being asked: Didn't they hang ontpo that shortlist of candidates that they drew up last autumn?