Give us silver on our 25th Sir Alex

May 4 2008 By Gordon Waddell

Simpson's Message To Old Dons Gaffer Fergie

ABERDEEN legend Neil Simpson last night urged Sir Alex Ferguson to bridge the generation gap and bring the Champions League trophy to the Granite City - 25 years after his first Euro glory night.

Dons will celebrate the anniversary of their sensational 1983 Cup Winners' Cup triumph over Spanish giants Real Madrid next Sunday.

And Simmy reckons it would be perfect symmetry if their old gaffer book-ended the years with another piece of silverware.

Fergie will bring his Manchester United side north to officially celebrate that Gothenburg glory night with a challenge match on July 12.

And Simpson grinned: "It would be the perfect way to round off the celebrations.

"Sir Alex going to Moscow in a couple of weeks and bringing that trophy back to sit alongside the Cup Winners' Cup when he takes his team up to play us in the summer.

"He's the reason so many of us are still involved in the game - the grounding he and Archie Knox gave us.

"Of the 16 guys in the squad that night 12 of us are still in football in some shape or form - that's an incredible number. But it says everything about the discipline, organisation and way he brought us up in the game. He made us appreciate football.

"And Archie deserves a lot of the credit too.

"He used to bring the young lads back in the afternoons at least three times a week to work on our weaknesses in an era when that was pretty much unheard of.

"And his sessions were so good, so progressive, I still use some of them now with the kids coming through at Pittodrie."

Dons stars will take a trip down memory lane this week with dinners on Friday and Saturday night to honour the achievement.

For anyone who was there the memories of that rain-soaked night in the Ullevi Stadium will be as fresh today as they were the morning after the game.

Eric Black's early opener, the agony of the equaliser, the elation of that breathtaking John Hewitt diving header in extra-time to seal a 2-1 triumph against one of the big guns in the game.

Yet for Simpson the scale of his side's landmark achievement didn't fully sink in until he was greeted by the spine-tingling reception in his home town.

It seemed the whole of Aberdeen had poured out on to the streets as Fergie's heroes were cheered on their open-top bus tour down Union Street all the way to a packed Pittodrie.

Simpson said: "There are so many things about that night I will never forget. But standing on that bus as we turned from Queens Road into Union Street when we got home?

"That sight, that sea of 100,000 fans, will be with me as long as I live - almost more than the game itself.

"As a local lad it was all my dreams come true and something that will never happen again theway the game is going.

"We were so focused but, if it doesn't sound too flippant, that was the same as every other game the gaffer ever took.

"We all knew our jobs, our set pieces and the opposition inside out."