Editorial from TRF 72 - Out NOW!
Okay, so he eventually signed – and thank goodness for that, for a fit Scott Severin is as good a midfield anchorman
as you will find in Scotland – but that doesn’t mean the saga deserves to be forgotten.
We may never really know what Severin’s true reasons were for knocking back the original offer, nor for eventually
signing one which was all but identical – football these days is a murky business – but we can surmise that it
didn’t seriously pivot on a few ill-mannered shouts from the Pittodrie stands or a bunch of ba’heids texting the
Evening Express. For one thing, the public nature of their chosen profession means footballers are going to get
idiots abusing them: it’s the price they reluctantly pay for doing what most of us would gladly give a right arm
for (leaving the throw-ins to Seve, obviously). If Scott expected a move away from Aberdeen to take him to a place
where people can be useless at their jobs and get away with it then he wouldn’t have signed for another team, he
would have stood for Parliament (possibly even as leader of a party, seems you can do that whilst pished or on
Big Brother and nobody notices the difference). Given his side’s appalling form, Jimmy Calderwood made a grave
error of judgement when he publicly blamed the Dons support for Seve’s stalling, and he is fortunate that the team
subsequently went on a season’s best unbeaten run otherwise the first shoots of real discontent may have started
poking through the winter frosts by now.
But one thing you cannot deny. He had a point.
Yes, it was a smokescreen, designed to silence the critics. Yes, the speed with which Severin changed his mind
and committed himself to Aberdeen until 2009 (amidst a bigger still hail of recrimination) proved that his beef
was not as fundamental as Calderwood would have had us believe. And yes, much of the flak fired at the team from
the stands was justified – the pre-Christmas performance at Livingston was painful to watch and should have embarrassed
a group of players capable of so much better. But that is not to say that the Aberdeen support is beyond reproach,
and you can certainly forgive Calderwood for becoming exasperated at some of the more irrational eruptions to emanate
from the Red Army ranks.
The irony of it all is that, in the recent past, Aberdeen have been worse than this team for VERY long spells and
have received for their pains little short of fevered (medically) fanaticism. The zenith of this lunatic loyalty
came under Ebbe Skovdahl, and while the defiant, unending singing during tanking after tanking at Parkhead may
have accelerated the club’s demise to ’laughing stock’ status in the eyes of others, it created a less insidious
atmosphere for the players of the day to strut their limited stuff. With some, it encouraged laziness: knowing
us mugs would be there regardless they couldn’t drag themselves out of the comfort zone. But I doubt that, for
example, Andy Dow would’ve had the one inspired season out of his whole journeyman career having to put up with
constant pelters rather than the albeit sarcastic choruses of his barmy army.
While the 2006 squad may have different problems than that of Dow and Co., possessing plenty of talent but failing
to show it rather than just being rank rotten, the part the fans can play remains the same. Screaming at players
every time they make mistakes or, even worse, booing them before they’ve touched the ball, will never make them
play any better. The reverse, it puts them under more pressure. In the heat of battle, of course there will be
times when your frustration kicks in and you howl your ire at yet another Lovell shirk, McNaughton failed disco
move or Byrne pass into touch. And Aberdeen, like every other team, will always have someone who stands out as
being crap, and in the post-match pub discussions that must be accepted and the culprit outed. Part of the game,
of supporting your team, and it should never stop hurting to the point where you can’t be bothered doing it any
more. But some of what is said and done in the name of supporting the Dons crosses the line and is detrimental
to Aberdeen’s chances of winning games.
Sadly, Aberdeen’s crowd is no more immune to the blight of bams than anyone else’s. Plenty only turn up to see
mistakes, so they can bellow the insults they’ve spent almost minutes thinking up over warm-up pints. Many’s the
unlucky Don who has gone a whole game error-free only to find himself called every name under the sun for his first
slack pass. Others don’t have to wait that long and if you were one of those who jeered Crawford before he’d even
touched the ball on Hogmanay then you’re a cock. Thumbs up to Stevie for turning it around over the last month,
one or two of you know fine well that you didn’t deserve it.
Today, keep your ears open to what you are hearing from those around you and pause to consider whether each despairing
cry is likelier to ease the path to a Dons victory or defeat. If you catch yourself in time, think of the effect
of what YOU are about to shout. Be loud, sing, make a racket, make this place an intimidating venue for opposition
teams to come to (it’s been too long since it was that) but above all SUPPORT your team. That wee surge in atmosphere,
adrenaline and confidence may win the Dons one extra tackle or one dubious corner, and it might be the one that
leads to the crucial goal.
COME ON YOU REDS, (and don't forget the Trust's Stadium Petition)
Pissed-off Merkie
AFC Trust Campaign for a Community Stadium
AFC Trust feel strongly that is in the interests of both Aberdeen Football Club and the wider North-East community
that a community stadium facility and associated sporting excellence centre is created in the city. To try to ensure
our elected representatives understand the level of backing for this amongst North-East people, the trust has started
an online petition (accessed from the link below) and also created lobbying letters which can be sent to individual
councillors.
The Trust calls for Aberdeen City Councillors to put aside party differences and find a way to move forward quickly
with plans to construct a community facility the whole of the North East - and indeed Scotland - can be proud of.
Please sign the online petition by clicking on the link on the right , and also download the appropriate letter
for your own city councillor/Council Leader/Lord Provost, sign it and send it to them to show how important it
is to us all!
Thank you.
AFC Trust
The AFC Trust deserves maximum backing for this campaign, if you have not yet signed the petition get on over to their website at www.afctrust.com right away. If you live in the City and can send the letter available on the site to your local councellor even better. Oh yeah, and why not slip a couple of quid to Reds Direct whilst you are at it. It all helps to bring us a stronger and healthy AFC!
Stand Free
Dear Fellow Reds,
I am sure you will all agree that off the field on Sunday it was a great day to be a Don. Just a shame the players
could not finish the job off, and make the day even better. For this reason I would like to thank every member
of the Red Army for their participation and enthusiasm towards the display. You helped to pull off the best display
on colour in the UK to this date. Something everyone should be proud of.
As you may also have noticed on Sunday, the Celtic fans had their own display, for this reason I am writing to
you all to try and ensure that the Red Army stays ahead of the rest, and to consolidate the fact that we are the
number one fans in the UK. We would greatly appreciate ideas of how we can fund raise for future display materials
and any fund raising ideas, future display ideas, also help on match days and the lead up to match days. A lot
of effort went in to Sunday; this started a few months back. We currently have a strong band of helpers for match
days, but more help is always welcomed. Many hands make light work!!
Materials for these displays do not cost as much, as you may think, and all money counts, so any contributions
or fund raising ideas will all be used to make Pittodrie even more colourful and louder than it was on Sunday.
Although we have to fund ourselves for every penny, and this can prove difficult, we need more materials to keep
ahead of our rivals. Can't have Rangers or Celtic, stealing our title as Number 1 fans.
I think it would be good if different fan groups came forward with ideas and we could all work together to make
them happen.
We look forward to hearing from you and your ideas, get in contact at www.redultras.net.
Thanks for your time and help with displays up to this time.
Yours in Aberdeen.
STAND FREE
The Red Ultras
Regular followers of TRF's opinionated paper rag will have no difficulty in getting their heads round today's headline. In fact, we could produce this every time McKimmie appears in print in the Evening Depress, but frankly we can't be bothered. Just thought we'd keep our hand in this time though, as he has chosen to take a pop at Aberdeen fans, thus extending what has been a long running feud brought about by his own performances at Pittodrie in the latter part of his otherwise glittering career.
Fit's he deen en? Slagged off supporters for slagging off Michael Hart and Richie Byrne. Hmmm. Very interesting, because from where this punter sits neither player has been getting it in the neck. In fact most people seem glad to have Hart back in harness, he hasn't taken long to get settled in and begin the return to last season's form and he made a real difference against Dundee United. Byrne is much lore likely to have detractors because of his unorthodox style and the fact it seems to take him a while to get into a game. At the same time, anybody can see that the guy is a wholehearted tryer, heavily involved and a Rougvie style character who will undoubtedly head for cult status even if he does struggle with basic passing and ball control sometimes. By the way, just what DID Jimmy Nicholl say to him on Tuesday night? Whatever it was it turned him from a radge into a red devil.
Mr. McKimmie gets paid to vent unpalatable opinions at us in the paper, but surely he can come up with plenty else to cheese off his readership without having a direct attack on them. It certainly doesn't look like he is doing much to help a flagging circulation if the desperate application of weird parrtotlike mascots is anything to go by.
HANG ON, GET IN
In my first year at university I was watching a documentary about England's Euro 96 campaign with some of my new
collegiate pals when I heard the phrase that would come to be used by myself and all in front of the screen that
day whenever their was success to be celebrated. Stuart Pearce was describing the emotions he experienced after
slamming home a penalty in a shoot out at Wembley, having suffered disappointment from the spot in the past. He
recalled that once he had scored he didn't feel too ecstatic as he turned to walk back to the half way line, but
then it hit him, he thought to himself, "Hang on, get in" and subsequently ran off towards the England
fans and went "pure mental" to use Glaswegian parlance. Sorry.
Such emotions were experienced by me at the Rob Roy pub in West London last Sunday as I and a pubfull of fellow
Dandies went crazy after watching the Dons shaft dirty rangers and put more than one spanner in their title defence
works. Not only are they now trailing the tims despite their less than awe inspiring start to the season but they
go into the infirm derby without one of their senior players, and demoralised after a tough, tough match. Truly,
it was the best Dons performance I have seen in a long, long time. McNaughton was brilliant, Lovell, with one touch
showed why Calderwood shelled out a six figure sum for him, and Anderson was the epitome of the courageous captain,
giving it all for the cause. He rightly got man of the match from Mark Hateful. Were it not for Dado Prso, the
huns might have been slaughtered. He seems to be the one player that will give them a chance of beating the tims.
Hopefully it will be a nil each draw, with no near misses, skilful play, corner kicks or good saves. And a twenty-two
man brawl to finish with where everyone is wounded and sent off after the final whistle.
Calderwood has cracked celtic away and rangers at home. The next step must be to gain victory at iprix. If we make
the top six, as I'm confident we will, we will get at least two shots at it this season. Sorting out Hearts away
would eb a good idea too. How I would love to be at that one.
Captain Sweaty
A Stroll Down memory lane
A Saturday night in April saw some Dandies realise an ambition few if any dreamed they would ever see, sitting
at a table in Aberdeen's Queen's Hotel sharing a drink with heroes such as King Joey Harper, Derek Cuptie McKay,
George Murray, Arthur Bumper Graham and It's a goal, a goal a goal for Henning Boel.
The reality was that we did and a rare night was had by all. We had worthies from the world of cyber space, Tommy,
The Torry Loon, The Oil Baron and yours truly, RTYD, all of whom were thrilled to talk fitba and in particular
Aiberdeen fitba, with boys we had worshiped from afar. Here they were, in the flesh, ordinary boys who could kick
a ba' better than us ordinary boys and thus elevated, by us, to the status of Gods. Of course like all Idols they
were a bittie tarnished; Cup tie likes a bucket, as does King Joey, so they were in fact, well, jist like us.
George Murray I used to remember as the quiet man of Pittodrie. He is quiet, but my God he's built like a brick
shithoose. Henning Boel seemed truly pleased to be able to talk about his team's greatest triumph, lifting the
Scottish Cup on 11th April 1970, in front of 108,000 fans. One of those fans was me, a starry eyed 11 year old,
battle hardened in the world of cup finals having been at the 1967 debacle, just before the Lisbon Lions became
the Lisbon Lions. I thought back to my auld fella who due to illness couldn't make the evening, who took me to
the match at the ripe old age of…38. Jesus!, I did the sums and couldn't believe how young he was then, I always
thought of him as an old radge!
The evening began with us playing spot the hero and I have to admit to being a tad disappointed that more of the
team weren't there, such as our captain. In 1970 you would never have believed that Martin Buchan would not go
down in the annals of history as our greatest ever Captain and sweeper, but you know what happened next. A captain
who when asked by a reporter for a "quick word" responded "velocity" and never broke stride
as he breezed majestically past him. Another I looked forward to seeing was Jim Hermiston one of the team who beat
Gornik 5-0 in a friendly at Pittodrie in what I still believe to be the finest display of fitba ever seen at God's
little acre.
However, I'm a great believer in concentrating on who was there as opposed to who wasn't.
Now this is where it gets a wee bit hazy, you see the demon drink set in and well ye ken fit it's like. We watched
a re-run of some of the action, the players talked about their experiences before, during and after the game and
we had a wee raffle. I won second prize, a signed ba', after the Oil Baron got first pick of the tickets. Those
of you familiar with the Northern Golf Club will realise that there is nothing new there.
There will very soon be another batch of nostalgia filled evenings when the Gothenburg team start to do what the
Lisbon Lions did and start touring. Quite right too. Nostalgia is not something to wallow in, rather it is something
to galvanise the spirit, to put the shite of today behind you and not to accept that there is nothing we can do
as the Old Firm are "too big". Well they've always been too big, a pair of leeches sucking the lifeblood
out of our game, but they have on occasion been put to the sword. So let's sharpen our blades and get after them.
First, not Third!!!
Up the Dons
RTYD
If the winner would like to get back in touch with TRF - The Red Wig has lost everyone's contact details, the tube - via the PO Box or the Privvy, he can claim his prize, for what it's worth.
Ya lucky bastard.
Monday 14th March 2005
It's here at last folks! The TRF contribution to the official merchandising operations down at AFC - a sheepie T-shirt with attitude. Get down there and splash out now - they're only a tenner....
Because we're only sheep-shagging-bastards!!!!!
You're in the Red Army now get the shirt!
Get Voting!!!!!!!
Forward this to every Aberdeen fan you know, and keep voting until you're sick to the back teeth of voting, and
then vote some more.
This is for the Dons this is!!
You can enter once a day every day up until 26th May, and until then a weekly draw sees a random person win 10k
every week.
BUT, you have to enter that you support Aberdeen(even if you support someone else or don't like football just put
Aberdeen anyway because we need it more than anyone else) and if we get more votes than anyone else Aberdeen get
£250,000 to spend on a player, with fans getting to help Stewart Milne to decide what player we buy with
the money.
We're currently 3rd in the table, just behind Leeds and QPR.
Now come on, go to www.coca-colafootball.co.uk
And remember to forward this message to everyone you know - remember they don't have to like football, they just
have to be clever enough to vote for Aberdeen.
Come on You REDZZZZ!!!!!!
Congratulations to Rogers XI and 2 Jimmies, the last two standing in the TRF Fantasy Cup 2004/05. Rogers XI, having eliminated Red Final editor Merkie in the last 16, rocketed through with a 30-23 victory over Lambchop XI, largely thanks to Kevin McNaughton's tournament-record 14pt contribution against Livingston. Meanwhile 2 Jimmies saw off Mentor Reds 26-19, their extra Dons defender, Zander Diamond, and a penalty from deer-shagger Barry Wilson proving vital. The tension will have to mount for a while though - TRF fantasymeister The Red Wig has decreed that, in the interests of fairness, the final will be played on the day of the next old firm match, thus avoiding a 0-7 thrashing unfairly weighting the outcome.