Aberdeen FC

Aberdeen FC
	Aberdeen FC
Basic data
Surname	Aberdeen Football Club
Seat	Aberdeen , Scotland
founding	April 14, 1903
Colours	Red White
president	Dave Cormack
Website	afc.co.uk
First soccer team
Head coach	Derek McInnes
Venue	Pittodrie Stadium
Places	20,961
league	Scottish Premiership
2019/20	4th place (quotient regulation)
home	Away

The FC Aberdeen (officially: Aberdeen Football Club ) - also known as The Dons - is a Scottish football club from the city, in the north city of Aberdeen . The club plays in the Scottish Premiership and is one of the most popular and successful Scottish football clubs. The club's most successful period was the 1980s under coach Sir Alex Ferguson , with winning the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1983 after beating Real Madrid in the final, marking the club's greatest success to date.

Aberdeen plays its home games at the 20,961-seat Pittodrie Stadium , which was the first stadium in Great Britain to have both a full roof and a full seat.

history

Origin of the association

The FC Aberdeen emerged from a merger of the three clubs Aberdeen , Victoria United and Orion , whereby the roots of "Aberdeen" go back to the year 1881. After a public meeting with over 1,600 citizens, the way was cleared for the association on March 20, 1903, which led to the official establishment of the Aberdeen Football Club on April 14 of the same year.

Through this merger, the new club, which initially appeared completely in white for its games, could now deal with joining the Scottish Football League . However, as Aberdeen narrowly missed admission to participate in the Scottish First Division , the club completed its first official season in the Northern League .

Just one year later, Aberdeen concluded then in the season 1904/05 the second-class Scottish Second Division and moved to this occasion the player's shirt colors in black and gold, giving them the nickname of "The wasps " (The Wasps) earned. Although the club only finished seventh at the end of the season, he was allowed to move directly to the higher First Division after just one year. Since then, Aberdeen FC has been in the highest Scottish league without interruption and has never been relegated from it, which otherwise only Celtic Glasgow managed.

In the early days there was a spectacular 13-0 win against FC Peterhead in 1923 . Eight years later, a betting scandal (known as the Great Mystery ) rocked the club , which resulted in five players being excluded.

Supremacy in Scotland

FC Aberdeen, which used red jerseys from 1939 and was to compete in red uniforms after 1965, has consistently established itself as one of the top performing clubs in Scottish football, but for a long time - apart from six so-called wartime titles during the Second World War - not win a major title. This only changed in 1947 when the club won the Scottish Cup for the first time after beating Hibernian Edinburgh 2-1 in the final . But at the latest when they won the championship in the 1954/55 season, FC Aberdeen became a serious competitor for the two dominant clubs from Glasgow.

In the summer of 1967, Aberdeen FC completed a season in North America as a participant in the newly formed United Soccer Association . This league invited twelve clubs from Europe and South America to play in US and Canadian cities. In addition, the clubs were given new names. FC Aberdeen, which competed under the name Washington Whips , first won the Eastern Championship and then lost in the final to the Los Angeles Wolves after extra time with 5: 6, with the English club Wolverhampton Wanderers hiding behind the winners of the Western Division . In the following season, this league merged with the National Professional Soccer League, which was also started in 1967, and henceforth formed the North American Soccer League (NASL).

In the early 1970s, Aberdeen FC was again successful when the club won the Scottish Cup once again in 1970 and the runner-up twice in the following seasons. Despite outstanding players at the time such as Joe Harper , Martin Buchan and Zoltán Varga , the club was unable to maintain the level for the time being.

The 1980s were to bring the best time in the club's history to this day, when Aberdeen FC celebrated a previously unimaginable series of successes. In addition to the legendary competition between Celtic and the Rangers - called the Old Firm - Aberdeen founded the New Firm with Dundee United and seriously challenged the traditional dominance of Glasgow, with Aberdeen being the far more successful team in the New Firm . The highlight of this development was winning the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1983; Back then, the clear favorite FC Bayern Munich was eliminated in the quarter-finals (0: 0/3: 2). After the Scottish championship was celebrated in 1984, the club was defeated in the 1984/1985 European Cup by the GDR champions and today's regional league team BFC Dynamo in the first round after penalties . In 1985 the Scottish championship could be defended.

Alex Ferguson (2006)

The starting point for this success was the arrival of the new coach Alex Ferguson in 1978 . After winning three championships, four Scottish FA Cups, three Scottish league cups and the aforementioned European Cup winners' competition - which was then even followed by the UEFA Super Cup after beating Hamburger SV - Ferguson became a legend in northeast Scotland. Willie Miller , Alex McLeish and Gordon Strachan were among the successful players who won a European Cup in Scotland for the last time in Gothenburg, Sweden .

When Ferguson moved to Manchester United in November 1986 , the Bureau was entrusted with the difficult task of finding a successor. The decision fell on the little-known Ian Porterfield , whose coaching career only lasted until May 1988 and was marked by disappointments.

90 minutes away from the championship title

The coaching team of Alex Smith and Jocky Scott replaced Porterfield and was able to build on past successes with double trophies (FA Cup and League Cup) in 1990. In the 1990/91 season, FC Aberdeen was after a series of twelve wins in thirteen games with the better goal difference over the Glasgow Rangers at the top of the table and had to face this same opponent away at Ibrox Park on the last day of the game . Two goals from Mark Hateley and a tactical change by Jocky Scott - which ultimately led to his leaving the club - then ensured that the Rangers won the game and with this renewed championship leveled the uninterrupted streak of nine titles between 1989 and 1997 .

The decline of the club

Alex Smith, as the sole responsible for the team, could not give any new impulses and was fired in 1992. He was followed by Willie Miller, one of the legendary players from the 1980s team, who was unable to meet expectations in the coaching position. After that, a large number of new athletic leaders came (and went).

In the second half of the 1990s, the sporting prospects deteriorated and the club was no longer competitive against the clear dominance of the Rangers and Celtic. In several seasons, Aberdeen FC even had to fear that it would remain in the Scottish Premier League and was only able to secure this against a winner of the (meanwhile second-rate) First Division because he did not meet the economic and safety requirements in the stadium for top division football. A curiosity also occurred in the Scottish Cup final in 2000, which FC Aberdeen lost and is emblematic of this troubled time. When regular goalkeeper Jim Leighton injured himself , eccentric Danish coach Ebbe Skovdahl put striker Robbie Winters between the posts instead of a substitute goalkeeper .

After a phase in which the club tried beyond its financial means to keep up with the Rangers and Celtic, the Aberdeen FC then tried again to operate within the means available.

present

The coach Jimmy Calderwood , who was active at FC Aberdeen until 2009 , led the club more comfortably back into the midfield of the league after a sporting consolidation from the turn of the millennium and created new expectations for the continuation of past successes. In its first season in 2004/05, Aberdeen FC managed to position themselves among the top six teams for the first time in three years and ended the season in a surprisingly good fourth place. The qualification at a European club competition was only just missed. At this point, Willie Miller also returned to Aberdeen as a sports director.

Also in the 2005/06 season Calderwood was able to continue his development work with a "quality over quantity" strategy, which also made English clubs in the second-rate Football League Championship and the third-rate Football League One aware of him. In a Scottish Premier League that has recently been exposed to strong new influences (such as the recent involvement of the Lithuanian businessman Roman Romanow in Heart of Midlothian ), Calderwood also received the promise of the Presidium to be able to make expanded investments in the future. Competitiveness should be maintained in the new environment and qualification for a European competition should be made possible again in the near future. This new policy quickly bore fruit and in the 2006/07 season, despite being eliminated early in the two domestic cup competitions, Aberdeen was able to secure third place in the championship behind the two big clubs from Glasgow and thus qualify for UEFA - Secure the trophy.

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Pittodrie Stadium

In the 2007/08 season, the club finally reached fourth place after a bumpy first half of the season and a series of defeats in the winter, but rejected the possible UI Cup participation. The highlights were the 4-0 win over FC Copenhagen in the UEFA Cup and the 2-2 win against FC Bayern Munich .

In the 2008/09 season they finally reached fourth place and the associated qualification for the newly created Europa League with a win on the last day of the game , with Dundee United only having the upper hand because of the better goal difference.

However, only two hours after the final whistle of the 2-1 victory over Hibernian, Jimmy Calderwood had to take his hat off, his assistants Jimmy Nichol and Sandy Clark also left the club. On June 12, 2009, former player legend Mark McGhee became the new coach of Aberdeen FC. He came along with assistant coach Scott Leitch from FC Motherwell .

However, under Mark McGhee, the Dons ended a disappointing season in ninth place. Also in all cup competitions they were eliminated early. McGhee stayed in office for the time being, as he should get time to reform the team.

In December 2010, Craig Brown previously coached FC Motherwell took over the team with his assistant coach Archie Knox . In the 2013/14 season the team was able to win a national title again and won the league cup against Inverness again after 18 years .

Squad of the 2020/21 season

As of August 24, 2020

No.		position	Surname
1	Scotland	TW	Joe Lewis
2	England	FROM	Shaleum Logan
3	Ireland	FROM	Tommie Hoban
4th	Scotland	FROM	Andrew Considine
5	Scotland	FROM	Scott McKenna
6th	Scotland	FROM	Michael Devlin
7th	Scotland	MF	Craig Bryson
8th	Belgium	MF	Funso Ojo
9	England	ST	Curtis Main
10	Northern Ireland	ST	Niall McGinn
11	Wales	MF	Ryan Hedges
14th	Wales	FROM	Ash Taylor
15th	Scotland	MF	Dylan McGeouch
16	England	ST	Sam Cosgrove

No.		position	Surname
17th	Ireland	MF	Jonny Hayes
18th	Scotland	ST	Connor McLennan
19th	Scotland	MF	Lewis Ferguson
20th	Czech Republic	TW	Tomáš Černý
21st	Scotland	ST	Bruce Anderson
22nd	Venezuela	FROM	Ronald Hernández
23	Scotland	MF	Ethan Ross
24	Scotland	MF	Dean Campbell
25th	Scotland	ST	Scott Wright
26th	Finland	MF	Miko Virtanen
32	England	ST	Ryan Edmondson
33	Northern Ireland	ST	Matthew Kennedy
40	Scotland	FROM	Ross McCrorie
50	Scotland	ST	Marley Watkins