Fergie Rises

by Michael Grant

  In his first season Aberdeen had finished eight points behind the champions, Billy McNeill’s Celtic. But it was obvious that they were capable of more without the need for radical surgery. Only Dougie Bell, the 19-year-old midfielder he had known at St Mirren, was added to the squad. In the boardroom Dick Donald and Chris Anderson had been impressed by how Ferguson handled a traumatic first campaign. It was clear that the players were responding to him, but he wanted more. On the first day of pre-season training in 1979 he told them ‘the honeymoon’s over’ and declared that things would now be done his way. There would be changes to the shape of the team including Gordon Strachan moving from central midfield to the right, and Alex McLeish beefing up the midfield. Ferguson felt that one of the reasons the team had defended too deep in his first season was they did not have natural tacklers in central midfield. It had been too easy for opponents to get through to Willie Miller and his back four. From now on they would be aggressive, far quicker to pressurise opponents on the ball, and afraid of nothing. There would be no playing for a draw; the intention was to go for a win in every game, including European ties and all trips to face the Old Firm in Glasgow. ‘It definitely did the trick with the players,’ he said later. ‘I could see a whole change in attitude.’

  Even so, Aberdeen’s second European campaign under Ferguson ended in the first round when they went out of the Uefa Cup to Eintracht Frankfurt, who drew 1–1 at Pittodrie before a 1–0 win in Germany. There was no shame in being eliminated by Eintracht, who went on to win the tournament; of greater concern was continued inconsistency in the Premier Division. By December they had beaten Rangers home and away, but lost twice to Morton, and had won just seven of fifteen league games.

  Aberdeen made it back to the League Cup final, which was brought forward to December. The feeling in Scottish football was that they had done the hard part simply by reaching Hampden. They had won all four cup ties against Rangers and Celtic with an aggregate score of 9–3. Indeed, the quarter-final against Celtic at Pittodrie saw a demonstration of virtuoso finishing by Steve Archibald and evidence of how unpredictable and pragmatic Ferguson could be when wayward characters were useful to him. Archibald scored a hat-trick and defied Ferguson’s instructions by taking the match ball home as a souvenir. He was a strong character and a law unto himself, but he rubbed along with Ferguson even though the potential for conflict was never far from the surface. When Ferguson found out about the ball he called Archibald into his office and ordered him to return it. The following day he was sitting in the coaches’ room with Pat Stanton and Teddy Scott, drinking tea and chatting, when the door burst open. Archibald shouted: ‘There’s your fucking ball’ and booted it hard into the small room. The three of them ducked and spilled tea over the floor as it ricocheted around. Others would have been crucified, but no action was taken against Archibald. ‘That was Steve,’ said Ferguson.

  Intelligent, strong-willed, capricious, and ambitious: the blond, tousle-haired Archibald shared many of the manager’s own characteristics. He turned up to moan about one thing or another so often that Ferguson said there was ‘an Archibald chair’ in his office. ‘Stevie liked to have his say and Fergie liked that about him,’ said Stanton. ‘He’d probably have done it himself when he was a player because he was volatile too. He recognised something of himself in Stevie. He didn’t want his players to be wee choirboys. Even when he was angry with Stevie he appreciated where he was coming from. They had respect for each other.’ Archibald also happened to be a dashing, reliable goalscorer with great instincts and reactions. He gave Aberdeen real menace.

  The League Cup momentum continued with a semi-final win over Morton to book their place in the final against Dundee United. For the first time since 1962 neither Rangers nor Celtic had reached the final. No one realised it at the time but it marked the first chapter in a new story for Scottish football; the beginning of an eight-year period in which a new order, the ‘New Firm’, took hold. The phrase came into common usage in the Scottish newspapers’ football pages as Aberdeen and United rose as twin challengers and developed an unusual rivalry.

  United’s manager was Jim McLean, a small, balding man whose public persona had two modes: miserable or furious. McLean was incredibly highly-strung and intense, a tracksuited martinet who commanded total authority over every aspect of Dundee United. His reputation for tactical and coaching brilliance was matched only by that for being uncompromisingly demanding. He was from Ashgill in South Lanarkshire, twenty miles from Ferguson’s Govan, and had been a journeyman player before becoming a coach at Dundee. They were the older, more successful and better-supported club in the city, but in 1971 he moved to the smaller Dundee United to become manager. McLean put an emphasis on finding and developing talented young players, then dominating and shaping their characters just as Ferguson did. United grew through the 1970s, reaching the 1974 Scottish Cup final and posting steadily improving results in the league. They had been third, behind Celtic and Rangers, the previous season.

  Ferguson and McLean were great pals. They had roomed together on an SFA coaching course way back in 1966 and remained close. Both grew up in Rangers strongholds but they were now fanatically committed to overturning the Old Firm. They entered into what amounted to an informal alliance: if their clubs could take points off Celtic and Rangers, or knock them out of the cup competitions, those tournaments would be opened up for Aberdeen and United. As managers they publicly teased each other, both claiming to have the upper hand in an affectionate sparring that Ferguson never repeated with any other manager likely to challenge his team for honours. United defender Maurice Malpas eventually got to know them both: ‘In some ways they were out of the same mould: had to win at all costs, crabbit shites, football daft. They spoke so often they knew what each other was doing. And they helped each other. They were desperate to skelp each other, but in terms of “them against us” with the Old Firm, the two of them were in cahoots.’

  Regular five-a-side games were organised between the clubs’ management teams. Ferguson and McLean recorded the scores and obsessed about winning the next one. Ferguson also liked McLean’s assistant, Walter Smith, so much so that he wanted to make him his own number two at Pittodrie. McLean stonewalled and Ferguson went for Stanton instead. Aberdeen had a larger support and eclipsed United’s achievements, but Ferguson found McLean’s teams the most frustrating and difficult to compete against. Over the years United inflicted some painful setbacks on the Dons. The 1979–80 League Cup final would be the first of them.

  The lowest crowd recorded for the tournament’s final, only 27,173, turned out on the vast Hampden slopes to see the first game, which Aberdeen controlled in a lively but goalless draw. ‘We played United off the park at Hampden,’ Ferguson said later. ‘I knew then in my heart that we had thrown the cup away. But I had to hide my feelings. I had to try to motivate myself and my team, decide on tactics and team formation for the replay.’ The second game was held at neutral Dens Park in Dundee–only a few hundred yards from United’s own stadium–and was one of the bleakest experiences of Ferguson’s Aberdeen career. His players never got to grips with the swirling wind, heavy rain and slippery pitch. The night got off to an appropriately embarrassing start when Willie Miller inexplicably led his team into the wrong half of the pitch for the warm-up, provoking loud jeers from the United support. Things never improved.

  Willie Pettigrew scored twice to give United a commanding 2–0 lead. The Aberdeen support was in a foul mood. Tayside Police had estimated that there would be 18,000 Aberdeen fans to United’s 8,000, but Dens Park was so packed that the turnstiles were closed with 2,000 Aberdeen supporters locked out. In the second half hundreds spilled on to trackside because of crushing and fighting, and play was suspended for two minutes. Paul Sturrock, United’s thin, quick, elusive striker, had been troubling the Aberdeen defence and no sooner had the game restarted than he embellished his performance with a goal. It was a 3–0 rout and the mood became uglier still. When the United
players went on a post-match lap of honour with the club’s first trophy they were forced to retreat to the centre circle after being pelted with cans. Bobby Clark criticised the louts in his Green Final column the following weekend: ‘Surely Aberdeen with its clean reputation for beautiful parks, gardens, good schools, hospitals and other amenities wants to preserve its good name right down the line to its football team? Let’s not be sheep and follow the example of the Old Firm.’

  The root cause of the anger was not United, though. Aberdeen had now lost three cup finals in a row. When the team bus arrived back at Pittodrie, well after midnight, Ferguson and his players saw fresh graffiti scrawled across the metal grille on the stadium’s front door: ‘You’ve let us down again Dons’. Ferguson felt wretched. ‘I remember coming back up the road from Dens Park that night and really feeling worse than I have felt in my life. I lay awake in bed all night expecting the phone to ring for some reason. In the morning I just felt like packing everything in because the season had promised so much and we had been beaten by United and lost our first chance of a trophy. I’m quite sure if I continue to manage for another twenty years I’ll still wake up in the middle of the night and relive that awful experience.’ Pat Stanton was taken aside for a quiet word by Dick Donald. ‘He’s really down,’ said the chairman. ‘You’ll have to pick him up from this.’

  ‘The “bridesmaid” tag is not good enough for the Pittodrie faithful,’ said the Evening Express on 13 December 1979. ‘Aberdeen have blown hot and cold for most of the season.’ It urged Ferguson to sign a new striker. The manager’s next column for the paper was headlined: SHATTERED–BUT OUR DAY WILL COME. He did not spare himself. Yes, he had picked the wrong team for the conditions. Yes, McLean had got the better of him. Yes, United played so poorly in the first game that it was obvious they would make changes for the replay. He acknowledged that including the replay his personal record in cup finals as player and manager now stood at five without a win. But he rallied. He turned up at Pittodrie early on the morning after the replay and personally met every player and congratulated them on the excellent effort they had shown over the whole cup campaign. Supporters did not share his enthusiasm. In the next game only 5,000, the lowest home crowd of the season, bothered to show up against St Mirren. Ferguson gave 16-year-old John Hewitt his debut. Hewitt would eventually carve his name into Ferguson’s career, but for now the manager simply needed someone to lift spirits with the promise of something new.

  Aberdeen were fourth in the table and six points behind leaders Celtic with a game in hand. They were not even halfway into the 36-game campaign. Celtic had already won at Pittodrie in September, but the home-and-away League Cup wins proved there was nothing between the teams. ‘He sat us down,’ John McMaster recalled. ‘He says, “I see winners in this room and I see losers.” That was clever. Everyone’s sitting there looking at themselves going, “Who’re the winners and who’re the losers?” He was more or less saying, “I’m getting rid of a few”.’

  Another defeat by Morton dropped them to sixth place in January, but then they began to gather points steadily. Rangers were beaten at Pittodrie before a 0–0 draw with Celtic left them ten points behind the leaders but with three games in hand. When Kilmarnock came and won in late February, Aberdeen’s challenge seemed doomed. Ferguson looked at the balance of his team and knew it was close to being a really strong unit. The defence was solid, with Willie Miller growing in stature all the time. Crucially Ferguson had solidified the centre of midfield by moving Alex McLeish forward from defence. John McMaster and Drew Jarvie were fine players but neither were natural tacklers. When McLeish was moved back to his preferred position in March, becoming Miller’s regular defensive partner for the first time, young Andy Watson replaced him to maintain the steeliness in the middle of the park. The midfield provided an extra layer of protection for the back four, and when they won possession they would funnel the ball to the team’s creative men, little Gordon Strachan and bearded winger Ian Scanlon, or the forwards. Moving Strachan out of the engine room to a wider position allowed him to blossom. He had great technique, could dribble, and was a finisher. His size and red hair made him a focal point in the team. Fans began urging the side to ‘get it to wee Gordon’. It was a side with a good, natural shape, with energy, pace and strength.

  Up front, Mark McGhee had become the preferred partner for Archibald. Joe Harper had suffered a serious knee injury and been out since November, effectively ending his Aberdeen career. The changes galvanised the team and four wins and two draws hauled them up to second. Celtic still looked in control and spent a Scottish transfer record of £250,000 to add striker Frank McGarvey from Liverpool. The signing was a blow to Ferguson because he had been trying to bring the player to Aberdeen. Celtic had already taken three points out of four at Pittodrie and Aberdeen still had to meet them twice in Glasgow. But surprisingly the champions began to wobble without being under any initial pressure. They struggled to score goals and won only once in seven league games between January and March, drawing the other six. ‘They’re getting worried,’ Ferguson told Miller privately.

  However, Celtic steadied themselves with important wins against Hibs and Rangers, and still had a seven-point lead on 5 April 1980 when Aberdeen went to Parkhead. Ferguson interpreted the situation in a way no previous Aberdeen manager would have: his team had a game in hand which could cut the lead to five (it was two points for a win in those days), and if they won their two remaining clashes with Celtic the gap would be down to just one. ‘A few weeks ago Celtic seemed to have it cut and dried,’ he said. ‘Everything now is in a different perspective.’ Ferguson’s chutzpah was compelling. He was talking about winning twice in a month at Parkhead when only one team had won there in any competition since the start of the season. Even Real Madrid had lost 2–0. And the one team to win? Aberdeen, in a League Cup tie in November. That was the spring of Ferguson’s optimism.

  More than 40,000 filled the enormous Parkhead terraces, the vast majority of them Celtic supporters coming to see Aberdeen’s challenge killed off. The sun was beating down, fans were in short-sleeves, and Ferguson was buoyant. Four days earlier a 4–0 win at Kilmarnock had left him purring. ‘You could have set it to music,’ he said. At Parkhead they were confident and assured, playing forcefully from the start. Jarvie gave them an early lead, Johnny Doyle soon equalised, but McGhee put Aberdeen 2–1 up in the second half. Bobby Lennox had a penalty to equalise, but Bobby Clark saved well and Aberdeen held on. ‘We had a great record at Parkhead,’ said Ferguson. ‘I simply knew we were going to win.’ They were now five points behind with a game in hand.

  Suddenly the newspapers realised they had a title race to cover. They printed lists of Celtic’s seven remaining games and Aberdeen’s eight. One fixture stood out. ‘For those who like their football tough and raw, pencil in the date of Wednesday, 23 April,’ wrote the Glasgow Herald. ‘That is when these two giants are scheduled to meet at Parkhead again. That could really be the decider.’ The veteran Sunday Mail journalist Allan Herron wrote: ‘Aberdeen have the players, the skill and the driving ambition to win the league championship for the second time in their 77-year history. But do they have the nerve?’ Trained fatalists, the club’s supporters suspected they would mess things up eventually, but they were drawn by the improving results. Home crowds rose from 7,000 to 19,000 in the space of five games. A home draw with Hibs on 16 April prompted an angry Ferguson to tell reporters his team had thrown away the title. But three days later Strachan, McGhee and Archibald delivered a 3–1 win at Kilmarnock and then heard the staggering news that Celtic had crashed 5–1 to a Dundee team who would be relegated within weeks. UNBELIEVABLE, AND I’M NOT CONVINCED IT REALLY HAPPENED was the headline on Ian Paul’s match report in the Glasgow Herald.

  Aberdeen returned to Parkhead for the third time in nineteen days (between league games they had lost 1–0 there to Rangers in the Scottish Cup semi-final). This time they had to win. ‘It couldn’t be done, that was the
media’s outlook on it,’ said Miller. ‘I remember reading the papers. We might be able to get one victory there but we certainly weren’t going to get two. I remember Mark McGhee’s performances, his strength of physique and character, were so important for us. At the time it was unthinkable but we had a belief we could do it.’ Ferguson said: ‘This is it, the league decider. If we lose, it’s Celtic’s title.’

  It was a hot, sweaty spring night in Glasgow’s east end. The Celtic support turned out in force again. The crowd was the biggest Aberdeen played in front of all season, officially recorded as 48,000, although some thought the true figure might be closer to 60,000. The vast terraces held a swaying, baying, noisy army in green-and-white, preparing to crank up the volume and test the nerve of the pretenders in red. Archibald scored early, but Celtic equalised from the penalty spot within two minutes. Aberdeen came again: Strachan had a penalty saved before McGhee nodded them back into the lead just before half-time. It was a rousing match. When McMaster and Scanlon opened Celtic up again in the second half Strachan made it 3–1 and the game was over. He clenched his fist at the hard-core Celtic support in the intimidating covered enclosure known as ‘The Jungle’, just as Archibald had after his opening goal. Ferguson approved: ‘It was letting Celtic know that we were there to win. We wanted to beat Celtic on their own ground, in front of their own people. We proved we were there not just to make up the numbers, but to win the league.’ Aberdeen were now top of the table on goal difference with four games left.

  ‘I think we knew then that it was really in our hands,’ said Bobby Clark. ‘That was the first time I felt that the Aberdeen fans got behind us and realised that something special was about to happen.’ It had become an Aberdeen-Celtic staring contest–and Celtic had blinked first. They had been eleven points ahead in the first week of January, but Aberdeen relentlessly clawed back the difference. When Celtic folded in April, losing four times, they allowed Ferguson’s men to pull level and then move clear. No club had broken both halves of the Old Firm since Kilmarnock won the league in 1965. Otherwise Scotland’s list of title winners read like a relentless tennis rally: Rangers-Celtic-Rangers-Celtic-Rangers-Celtic, ad nauseam. But on the morning of 3 May 1980, Aberdeen knew their vastly superior goal difference meant they would effectively end that sequence if they won at Hibs and Celtic dropped a point at St Mirren.