There are loads of ways of covering this 100th birthday, but since there are a bunch of anoraks operating at TRF Towers let's kick off the celebrations with a heap of statistics that you probably won't find anywhere else (yet).
In the 100 years up to the Hibs match at Easter Road on 29th December, the Dandies have played 4033 competitive matches - League, Cup, League Cup and European. Of those, 1967 have been played on the hallowed turf of Pittodrie in front of 26,331,022 deliriously faithful fans - that's an average of 13,386 per match.. Away from home there have been 1972 games in front of 23,628,566 punters, an average of 11,982. On neutral ground so far, we have had 94 games in front of 3,970,687 people. In total then, the Dandies have drawn 53,930,285 paying fans through the turnstiles. There have been 1835 wins, 945 draws and 1252 defeats over the century and 7053 goals have been scored by the Redz (an average of 1.75) with 5274 (1.31) going into our net.
A total of 685 players have pulled on the jersey to represent us in all of those games. The 100 players with most appearances for the Dons makes an impressive role call with or greatest ever player at the top of that particular tree. Of the current squad only Russell Anderson at 92 and Darren Young at 999 scrape in although of the current Pittodrie Staff, Neil Simpson (21), Chic McLelland (59) and Jim Whyte (98) also feature. You can find a list of the other current playing staff and their table positions here - TRF will publish the full list later in the centenary season.
The goalscorers are always the guys who command most attention in the team and the 100 who have made scored most for Aberdeen are no different. A total of 406 players have scored our goals over the past century, but it is a sobering thought that it is only necessary for somebody to strike a mere 22 times to get into that top 100. Then again, they have hit the net an average of 17.37 times so there is a crumb of comfort in the knowledge that there have been some prolific scorers over the piece. Of course King Joey was the highest scoring player, but the one who scored at the highest rate was Alex Merry in the 1920s who grabbed 26 in 32 games. Of the highest scoring players, the magnificent Harry Yorston was the one who gained goals at the highest rate with 0.80 per game against 0.66 from Harper and 0.71 from Matt Armstrong, the second highest in total.
It would be a bit embarrassing for the present squad to say where they come in the scoring chats, but the one currently looking likeliest to get into the 100 is Darren Mackie with a total of 15 to date. Mind you, how long it might take him to get the other 7 is a big question. Maybe Pele will get the team stoked up enough to get the Kemnay loon up there sooner rather than later.
Just to round this off, we'll take a quick look at referees. We don't have full info on refs, but since the end of W.W.II we have had 341 in charge of our games, almost 200 of whom were foreign - handling the European competitions. We don't know where all of the Scots ones were based, but of those we do, only 8 actually owned up to coming from Glasgow whilst 27 more put themselves down as being from other places that were in fact part of greater Glasgow. Not that we are claiming any bias, that is simple fact. The most frequent whistlers are all now retired - the 5 who handled the most games were: Bob Valentine - 63 (strangely these were often against Dundee United); Brian McGinlay - 61; George Smith - 61; David Syme - 61; Bobby Davidson - 56. Of the current crop of men in black, Kenny Clark leads the pack with 38 games and slaphead John Rowbotham is on 37. How many incompetent performances, bed or downright prejudiced decisions over the years - that's anybody's guess, but you can bet that the next century will be just as trying.
There you go, probably more information than you wanted at the turn of AFC's first century and we haven't even relisted the trophies. On that score, people might think that as a "provincial" club we have done nae bad, but TRF is both ambitious for the Dandies and greedy so we want far more in the next century. So in the words of the Bard - COME ON YOU REDZ!!!!!!
The timing of their arrival is pretty good because this season is already pretty much a write-off and so there is time for the the new management to take stock and start working whatever magic they bring. That's not to say that there's no pressure on them, because there is. A few more bad results and we might see our heroes dragged right into the relegation dog fight instead of clawing their way upward into the top six. Nobody wants that and everybody associated with the club, including the supporters, should be throwing their weight behind the new boss to ensure that there are no distractions from the job in hand and to help him in any way possible to get the show on the road. A few decent results would take the pressure off of other people at Pittodrie, imagine how hard it is for the folk in the ticket office right now, or how tough it must be for the commercial people to make our home games sound attractive enough for business people to buy corporate dining. All that sort of thing is boring to most fans, but that is where the money has to come from to keep the Dons going and ultimately to pay for new players and anything else that needs to be done to bring about improvement.
What can we expect from Paterson? He looks like a plain speaking guy who will work tremendously hard to get us a team that plays decent football and is prepared to graft and battle to get results. That would be a great leap forward for most fans who want a team that they can identify with and respect because it is always trying its best. he is not going to transform the Redz into Brazil overnight, but over a few months and with a few changes of personnel, he'll likely get a team that is going forward and making life hard for any opponent. Nobody doubts the need to get goalscorers on the books and that they will need good service, but he likes his teams to play positive football so the service should come - especially once he gets a fitter and more determined squad.
How can the Red Army(TM) help? Solid vocal backing, patience, enthusiasm and plenty of it. There's no point in booing the players off the park at this stage of the season, especially after the months of embarrassing "Ebbe, Ebbe, give us a wave" stuff, no matter how badly we were playing. Paterson has taken on an under achieving, under trained and under motivated squad and a neglected youth development system and needs to sort all of that out. He can't do it all at once so give him your support and encouragement. The rewards will come.
Go to it Pele and the best of luck.
In the space of 3 years and 4 months from 1999 to now, Ebbe has used 52 players. In roughly equivalent periods, from 1969 - 1973 39 were used; from 1979 - 1983 37 were used; from 1989 - 1993 42 were used (over 4 full seasons in each case - as opposed to Skovdahl's less than 3.5). Of those 52, of course there were some who had to be removed from the squad as part of the treatment of the cancer that had crept in over the previous few years, even so that's a lot of players.
Of the 52 players used, 17 were signed by Skovdahl:
|
Belabed |
Billio |
Bisconti |
|
Cobian |
Dadi |
Deloumeaux |
|
Di Rocco |
D'Jaffo |
Fabiano |
|
Guntveit |
Kjaer |
Mike |
|
Preece |
Solberg |
Stavrum |
|
Thornley |
Zerouali |
The team that is taking the field every week these days is very much Ebbe's one but loads of people blame everybody but him for their poor form. The legacy that he is leaving is a youth system that he has neglected and a first team squad that seems to lack fitness, discipline and spirit. The next man has a job on his hands, but if he is half competent he should be able to get much better out of the guys who are at Pittodrie, for there is no doubt that they are certainly capable of much more than Skovdahl was coaxing from them.
3rd December - Pissed-Off Merkie's 2002 AFC AGM report
Stewart Milne kicked off this year's AGM by conveying the apologies of Martin Gilbert, stuck in London cleaning
up the mess of another of his failing companies. If he'd realised the easy ride he'd get, MG might have driven
back himself for an evening of light relief.
I've never been convinced by the relevance of plc status to a football club. It's the inevitable consequence of
importing money from the City, but it enforces upon clubs conventions and operations to which they are not accustomed
and cannot really develop. AFCplc is a relatively young business and it seems it hasn't yet got the hang of this
AGM lark. This is supposed to be the one chance a year for the shareholders to ensure in public that their investment
is being properly looked after. Instead a roomful of open-mouthed mannies and wifies sat awe-struck by the people
they see so often on telly, and let the board in charge of Financial Black Hole FC utterly off the hook. Would
the chairman of any other plc presenting such annual results to an AGM have been resoundingly voted back into office
by an inexplicably adoring public?
We have all complained that the Dandies have not had enough TV exposure this season, but as it turns out the BBC are probably doing us something of a favour by ignoring us. If they do decide to cover any more matches involving the Redz then let's hope that it will be away from home so some much needed revenue can find its way into the much depleted coffers.