|
Philing the Gap (15/12/04)
Jimmy Calderwood is in a tough situation. Although the team is performing much better than last season the relatively
successful season it is having so far is bringing with it the same financial concerns as the poorer seasons gone
by. When a club's performances and results improve substantially in such a short period of time, the bean counters
can be forgiven for believing that the crowds would increase substantially in a similarly quick fashion. Sadly
this is not the case. Although the results are much better and the league position greatly improved, a number of
factors remain, keeping attendances down and the coffers less full than they might otherwise be. There is a feeling
that this winning habit is too good to last with the resources available. Many punters still remain at home on
a Saturday perhaps afraid to go back lest their return coincide with another dip in the team's fortunes. Many were
put off by the atmosphere at the club in the mid to late nineties and the first few years of the new century. Many
in their 40s and 50s rebelled at the
inflated wages of underperforming players, the strange kickoff times, and the ever increasing ticket prices. To
win these punters back will take a period of sustained success and a PR campaign stressing the return to reality,
if not purity, of Scottish football. A return to majority Scottish, or at least British squads with the odd foreigner
here and there, sensibly paid, and seen to be working harder for their corn. One gets the feeling that much damage
was done in the nineties when the perception of many fans was that the Dons players were getting wages that were
vastly disproportionate to their performances. Whether or not certain players should have been paid what they were
paid is neither here nor there, the fact was that the fans didn't believe that they deserved what they, the players,
got in terms of rewards, and they, themselves, in terms of entertainment. The sight of these players out and about
in fancy cars and bars and women, surely bred resentment in many 40-50 year old men who perhaps did much better
at their jobs for decades and were not as well rewarded for it. The fact that they were paying through the nose
at weekends to fund the lifestyles that eluded them probably added to their resentment. It is these fans and their
pals that need to be won back to Pittodrie. It will take more than one good season to do it, which is where Calderwood
and his tough situation fit in. Although taking in little more through the gates than Paterson, Calderwood and
the board seem to think that crowds should be a fair bit higher given current standards on the pitch, and perhaps
they are right.
Calderwood, on joining the Dons said that despite qualifying for a cup final and finishing well in the league,
the people of Dunfermline just would not turn out in numbers to support the club on a regular basis. If and when
Calderwood can claim to have led the Dons to a sustained period of success, we don't want him to say, he could
do no more with regards to getting the average attendances up significantly, and then bugger off and manage the
huns. Hopefully a sustained period of success will up the average gates by a couple of thousand. He can't ask anymore
of the hardcore. They have followed the Dons in their thousands to Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Hibernian etc. whether
the team has performed or not. It is the periphery that need to be inspired just to travel a few miles twice a
fortnight and fill the stands. I'll leave the nuts and bolts of how to do that to the professionals both pitchside
and boardroomside, but I will say that it needs to be done soon. Not to address this issue would be to continue
to put Calderwood and his successors in the position of having to let important players go to improve the squad.
In order to boost our firepower up front, Calderwood has been reduced to informing Phil McGuire that he won't
be offered a new deal. When fit, Anderson and Diamond are the centre half pairing to start with, but how often
will back up be needed? Given the nature of the position and the injury history of the starting pair I would argue
that a seasoned replacement is needed. McGuire is also capable of either fullback role, and doesn't suffer huns
lightly. On occasion he has filled the gap in the midfield holding role as well. Claiming that Heikkinen is a good
replacement at centre half should Anderson or Diamond be unavailable is not a good excuse for Calderwood to use
when a) he is unsure of the club's ability to hang on to Heikkinen, and b) when the club wants to hold on to Heikkinen
primarily for his midfield skills. Furthermore, there is a chance that in the near future the club will be made
an offer it can't
refuse for either Diamond or Anderson or both. Having McGuire there to plug one of those gaps whilst a replacement
is sought would be of great benefit and would probably save some money. Considine and O'Leary may be pushing to
get into the first team soon but what are the odds on either being as good as Diamond? Slim I'd say. Even Diamond
still has areas to work on, his physique, and occasional over enthusiasm have caused him problems at times this
season.
Keeping McGuire on allows Severin and Heikkinen (If we can keep him) to fulfill their midfield duties which
I would argue is of more
importance than bringing in someone like Crawford who may or may not net on enough occasions to make his purchase
worthwhile. There is no doubt that a goal scorer with a good record like Crawford would be a positive move but
when weighed with the consequences to the make up of the remainder of the squad, such as decision is not quite
so straightforward. We are third in the league with a 4 point cushion and almost half way gone. Our top scorer
only has 6 goals. We are fortunate in that most players that have played so far this season have scored at least
once. We are so far not reliant on one player to score. Crawford could come in January and end up top scorer, or
could come in January and break a leg. Disrupting the team by removing one of its most experienced members is a
gamble. It is a pity Whelan has not remained fit and solved this dilemma. This type of decision is precisely the
kind that managers get paid so well to take. I wish Calderwood (and McGuire) the best of luck in his choice.
Captain Sweaty
|
|
A Tribute to Zero (9th December 2004)
There are millions of people out there who have spent an unhealthy proportion of their lives in football grounds
across the world, generally knowing, however much they wish it were otherwise, that the game they are about to
watch will be rubbish. Last week's game was rubbish too, and next week's will probably be even worse. Yet still
they come, and they keep coming. They come because there's always the chance that today will be the day that something
really special happens. Today, it might be good. Today, it might even be GREAT. It might be the one you can't afford
to miss. One fleeting moment of brilliance might light up the season, the decade, the club's entire turgid history,
and all the dross will fade away, forgiven and forgotten, as kindred souls congregate ad infinitum around their
post-match pints to relive that one incredible instant when they were there.
That is why we absolutely adored Hicham Zerouali.
Most managers would doubtless have hated Zero. He rarely tackled anybody, and didn't much like being tackled himself.
His discipline was questionable, and he was seldom to be found manning the barricades when things got dicey during
a match. In a game which has come to be dominated by the paralysing fear of letting the other lot beat you, Zero
became labelled a 'luxury player'. In the Aberdeen team to which he signed in late 1999, relatively speaking a
solid contender at being the worst in the club's existence, that was so right and yet so wrong. He could certainly
never be relied upon to eke out the run of results that side would have needed to drag itself towards respectability.
But there were things he could conjure up that his teammates could not, and even if he did them once every dozen
games that's once more than would have got done without him. The concept of having to endure that team without
Zero simply doesn't bear thinking about.
Zero was never a luxury player. Zero was the sort of player the game of football was invented for. If every footballer
played like Zero they could charge whatever they liked at the gates and every match would still attract a capacity
crowd. He routinely did things other players wouldn't even think of and fans didn't even know existed. By no means
did they always come off, but his average was outstanding and the result was a string of moments which made following
the Dons not only bearable but thrilling, even in the 'bad old days'. The results and the league positions may
be blurring as they race to the horizons of our collective memory, but the legacy of Zerouali still shines like
a beacon, brighter than the bleached-blond hairdo he shocked us with at the 2002 cup-tie with Celtic. We were there.
It is scarcely believable, given the extensive back catalogue of 'Zero moments', that he only ever started 23 games
for Aberdeen. It was one of his 25 substitute appearances, though, that alerted us to the fact that we were in
the presence of greatness. Early in the second half of an otherwise run-of-the-mill 1-1 draw with Hearts, on a
cold December evening, Ebbe Skovdahl took his courage in his hands and threw his ace onto the table. Enter Hicham
Zerouali, a man whose name a month earlier would have meant nothing on the terraces of the SPL. It was the only
name on the lips of the lucky punters in attendance as they left Pittodrie that night. His stunning cameo turned
the match decisively in Aberdeen's favour. Zero may not have scored - though not for the want of trying - but he
created two goals and a seismic impact.
From that day, even if Zero had never scored a single goal for the Dons, he would still have got up to plenty to
leave a smile on our faces almost as wide as his own. That his skills often took the breath away goes without saying,
and that his celebratory gymnastics were way beyond your average penalty-box poacher self-evident, but equally
central to the Zerouali enigma was the ancillary antics. Who could have failed to see the funny side when he got
himself sent off in a pre-season friendly in Denmark for giving the V-sign to the clearly astounded referee? Who
else could have engendered such devotion for there to be a campaign - and for it to succeed, at the altar of Scottish
football's cave-dwelling administrators - that he be allowed to wear the taboo squad number 0? And who else would
have taken the huff so much, after breaking an ankle in his fifth game in his new shirt, that he branded it unlucky
and demanded the 'safe' 11 jersey instead? This was no 90-minute hero. The defining moment of Zero the man came
before the 2000 League Cup semi-final against Dundee United at Dens, when he came out of the tunnel lugging a bouquet
of flowers. As the rest of the players made for the halfway line formalities, Zero ran to the Shankly Stand and
threw the blooms to his adoring public, one of whom responded in kind by chucking back an inflatable sheep. Lesser
mortals would have considered the PR work done, but not Zero. He picked up the sheep, hurdled the advert boards
and, as he ran to rejoin his teammates, placed it carefully behind the by-line, facing the pitch. That a humourless
ref made Zero return to the scene of the crime and remove the offending item from the environs of the field of
play only served to intensify his resemblance to a naughty schoolboy practising his skills in the playground. And
we loved him even more.
The defining moments of Zero the player, though, are unquestionably goals, goals, goals. Cliché-spouting
observers who fail to appreciate when they are in the company of genius will often say that this or that player
"doesn't score ordinary goals". Quite simply, there is no player to whom that adage applied more than
Zero. He netted 'only' 13 times for the Dons, but at least nine of them were goals you will never forget. His inch-perfect
free-kick in the dodgy Scottish Cup tie at St Mirren may have turned out to be his most important, but just as
spectacular were his carbon-copy volleys against Motherwell and, in the run-up to that 2000 Final, Kilmarnock,
his 30-yard screamer off the bar at Rugby Park, and a thunderbolt around Stephen Wright against United at Pittodrie.
The injury-time clincher against Hibs, where he ran, alone, the length of the pitch before letting the ball trundle
over the unguarded line agonisingly out of the reach of the despairing defender, and the abandon with which he
celebrated a Dens Park hat-trick in the puddles in front of the away stand encapsulated the impudence of Zerouali
and the unadulterated joy he could bring to thousands of spectators with one flay of his boot.
Hicham Zerouali was a bloody good footballer, but he was more than that besides. Zerouali was the personification
of the happiness a daft game can foster in so many of us, and that is why his loss is being felt so hard so far
away from his home. It is not only Zero who has died, a little bit of the magic of football has too.
Rest in peace, Zero, and thanks for the good times.
Chris Crighton
|
|
Frank and Sense… (8th December 2004)
Aye, well… ae Christmas, I sends the Boxyquine a huge pile o’ sna’, then I rings her up and says, "Did you
get my drift?"…We’re a’ ha’ein’ a drink at a do at Pittodrie last Christmas, and the chef wis telling me how
his been struggling ti get a turkey big enough ti feed abody. A few days afore, he wis at Aldi, picking through
a’ the turkeys but they wis a’ too sma and so he asked the Aldi butcher gadgie "Do these turkeys get any bigger?"
The Aldi butcher gadgie anserrs "No, they're fuckin’ deid."…So, onywie, back at this
posh do at Pittodrie last Christmas, I says ti the club doctor "Fit's wrang wi me? I'm afraid of Suntie"
and he says, "You’re Claustrophobic.”…Jist at that moment, a reindeer walks in the door, pushes his wie up
ti the bar and ordered a pint o’ heavy. Withoot batting an eye, the barman poured the drink, pits it in front of
the reindeer, and accepts a twenty-pound note fae the reindeer's hoof. As he hands the reindeer a handfae o’ change,
he says "Ye ken, I think you're the first reindeer I've iver seen in here."
The reindeer looks hard at the hoof-fae o’ change and says, "At these prices, I'm nae fuckin’ surprised!"…Spikkin’
aboot reindeers, I wis jist thinking, why is ye niver hear onything about the 10th reindeer, "Olive"
- Aye, ye dee ken, ye ken fine actually - "Olive the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names".
Onywie, back at this posh do at Pittodrie last Christmas, there is a bunch o’ chess enthusiasts hingin’ aboot the
lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. Efter about three quarters o’ an ‘oor, Stewarty Milne comes
along and asks them to disperse. "But fit for?" they asked as they moved off. "Because," said
the ex-Wigster, "I canna stan’ chess nuts boasting in an open foyer." Actually it wis rare night, wi’
lots o’ Dons players there and I finished up gie bleezin’ - at the end I wis affa dizzy, fa’in a’ oer the place,
and I went heid first inta the Christmas tree and caught tinselitis. Stevie Tosh sees how unbalanced I am and says
ti me “Hemmin Torryloon, have ye got vertigo?” and I says, “Aye, Menzies Road but I’ll get a taxi.” …Apparently,
Stewarty Milne wis fair chuffed wi’ the present that we here at The Red Final got him for his Christmas. He unwraps
the parcel to find it contained a comb, and says, “Thanks, I'll never part with it.”…Hing on abody, here’s een
oot o’ an AFC luxury LIDL Christmas cracker for ye: Fit’s fifty yards lang and eats rats?…A queue at a Glesga bucket…And
we’ve jist heard a rumour that Father Christmas at Asda in Glesga and Edinburgh his bin seen weerin’ a Rangers
scarf: aye, that’s right, “Santa Claus is scum in two towns".
Well, fae abody here at The Red Final, goodwill to all men (that’s Huns oot o’ the equation) and let’s finish
with the memory o’ how fitba players fae Spain are right greeting faced whingers: mind how Doog Rougvie stood on
thon Spanish gadgie’s fit, he got him a bosker and didna miss el toe…and whine!
The Torryloon
|