Maybe it’s just me, but I’m fed up of new dawns. And new Dons (managers).
I hate to start an article battering the reader over the head with a pun, but its necessary here. Adopt the foetal position; it’ll all be over soon.
I live in North Ayrshire, and always have. I accept your sympathies. Around about 1996 I decided I was going to get into football and select a team. As Aberdeen had recently won a cup (the League Cup, I know now, as it hangs over the present team like the spectre at the feast demanding company and never getting it) I decided that team would be Aberdeen. I didn’t want to do what all my classmates did and support either half of the Old Firm as, by the calibre of some of those classmates, I had already decided in my preadolescent state that they must be minky roasters. That phrase is now copyrighted in my name, by the way, but you can use it if you like.
So I’ve been an Aberdeen supporter since 1996, and coincidentally we’ve done very little of note since then. Suspicions that I was some sort of jinx formed in my mind. Until this season I would have described myself as predominantly a media-based supporter. I’d scour the web, forums and news sites, and read and re-read the same stories in different newspapers, seeking a new nugget of information about the team. I followed games on the radio or online. It was for this reason that my suspicions that I was a curse seemed to be confirmed over the years, as the few games I was actually able to attend generally ended up in ignominious defeat for the Reds.
This season was going to be different, I said. I was at the opening game of the season and revelled – no, rejoiced – in the new-found cohesion among the team and between the team and the fans. Even Mark McGhee seemed buoyed by the occasion, lifting one corner of his mouth in a display of uncharacteristic rapture. The jinx, it seemed, was lifted. Victory at St. Johnstone followed, and I made the journey through to Alloa to watch the Dons make fairly light work of a fixture which, in their heart of hearts, most fans dreaded. I decided I was going to get to more games, and keep copies of match programmes and newspaper cuttings (although with hindsight the latter seems a bit “hidden shrine to his victims” rather than “really supports his football team”). It seemed, to steal a phrase which induces in me a Pavlovian urge to kill everyone in my sight, “a new dawn”, the new dawn we’ve been promised a hundred times over the last fourteen years.
Then the wheels came off – as they always, always do. We’ve all witnessed the abortion that this season has been since the early season promise. To apply a Frankie Boyle-esque twist to an oft-quoted Ebbe gem, the surgeon put his gloves on correctly, but then killed the patient with his scalpel and attempted to hump the corpse. Nurses attempted to stop the humping (if you’re still with me, the attempts to stop the humping are of course the win against Hibs and progressing in the cup) but the surgeon shook them off until he lay, spent and panting, beside the body waiting for the police to arrive. I feel that we, the supporters, are the family members standing in the waiting area watching the blood-spattered surgeon being taken away in handcuffs and seeing a shocked hospital administrator approach us to break the news.
Now we have appointed Craig Brown. He seems a nice guy, certainly knowledgeable, and a safe choice. Archie Knox has a history with the club that predates my following of the team (predates my birth actually) and which makes him seem a sensible option. It is endemic though of the catastrophic nature of the season so far that it has polarised my passion: I’m not actually all that excited by the prospect of a new management team. Whereas before I’d be feeling enthusiastic about the prospect of new methods, new formations, maybe even new players, the car-crash we’ve witnessed to date has induced a horrific malaise in me.
For example, the Board have done well within the confines of making a safe choice here, but maybe what the club needed to shake off the torpor was to play a wildcard. I could have wept seeing some of the names being bandied about – the worst for my money was Gus McPherson – so I suppose we’ve maybe got the best of the bunch. But maybe by casting the net a bit further afield we could have brought in some new ideas that could take the SPL by surprise a wee bit, rather than bringing in someone who knows only how to use and nullify the existing ideas. With this safe appointment, the only way to spring any kind of surprise is to increase the budget for players to ensure that we get quality through the doors – if that’s not done I don’t really see that we’re going to be any better off than we were under Mark McGhee.
The players too have a hell of a lot to answer for in my book. I note our vice captain is in the press today saying that the players are all professionals and wouldn’t deliberately play badly to get rid of a disliked boss. If they win this weekend then questions will be asked: “Where was this victory a fortnight ago?” “Where was the passion and tenacity in the Celtic game?” If you read the aforementioned article I’m sure you’ll agree that it seems a lot like a player who has been gash all season trying to convince his new boss to ignore the preceding four months. Arse-covering Mr. Diamond? Part of the coma surrounding the club undoubtedly is caused by some of the players. The aforementioned Diamond should be offloaded – McArdle and Considine are superior centre-halves anyway, although it is his attitude which rankles at this time – along with Darren Mackie and Derek Young. Accepting Messrs. Mackie and Young’s inadequacies because “they work really hard” no longer cuts it. They’re both a waste of a wage. Ifil also falls into this camp.
To draw this to a conclusion, I’m going to talk about internet pornography.
Yes, that’s right.
Through arduous research, my conclusions on internet porn are that you can watch a man and a woman who love each other very much make love on the internet. After a few weeks, that doesn’t really cut it anymore, but it’s ok – you have the option of watching a man and a woman who don’t really like each other at all making love. After a while that loses its shine so you search for maybe a man and woman who do love each other enticing another man to make love to the woman while the man who loves the woman watches the other man make love to the woman from a corner of the bedroom. This trend continues until you find yourself observing a man who frankly despises all women filming a woman who despises herself performing various non-equestrian activities with a horse who doesn’t really know what’s going on but does love the sugar lumps that it knows it will get later.
I opened this article with a gambit about new dawns and new Dons managers. How we laughed. I’m still chuckling now. Aberdeen fans should drive the club on with their passion. However with each false “new dawn” and each manager who fails to rekindle the spark, more of the shine is taken off of that passion. And, for the benefit of the Daily Record, “rekindling the spark” doesn’t mean Aberdeen winning the league or taking us to European finals: it means us beating teams that our superior budget should dictate we beat. It means our team being well-organised, difficult to break down and clever going forward. It means doing the basic, simple stuff well. It means the players playing their hearts out for the jersey, the way any fan would if given the chance. Actually I got a bit ahead of myself there. For the benefit of the Daily Record, “rekindle” means “re-light”. Just in case Jim Traynor’s a bit confused by this point.
We don’t have the option to move onto watching something more graphic. There is no football equivalent of horse porn. We have the team we love, and that is it. We are entitled to ask that our passion isn’t taken for granted. Frankly, I’m not sure that the club even considers that.
MercenaryGit
Aberdeen-Mad - written by the fans for the fans. Together we can make a difference.
