New Firm Live On Old Glories

May 11 2008 Gordon Waddell

We'll Never See Repeat Of 80s Week Of Triumph

IT'S a week we will never see again. A once-in-a-lifetime deal.

Not the one ahead in Manchester. The one that happened exactly 25 years ago in the north east.

Aberdeen lifting the Cup Winners' Cup a quarter of a century past to the day. And just four days later Dundee United winning the Premier League.

Both stunning achievements in their day. But now? Now when you put them in context it would be like scientists finding life on Mars and a cure for cancer in the same week.

Sure, people are working towards them and they COULD happen - but if you want to work out the odds you're going to need a bigger calculator.

So what made them so special? One word - breeding.

Of the 16 guys stripped for that win over Real Madrid, Aberdeen was the first club for 11 of them. Of the core of 13 who played the vast majority of the games for United through that season, 11 came through the ranks.

That's not luck. That's 99 per cent planning, scouting, recruiting, knowledge, experience, coaching - and maybe one per cent luck.

But the dynamic has now changed so much that it cannot happen again. Not once in a blue moon, never mind twice in a week.

Because while judgment and skill found the talent, power and fear kept the players there long enough to be a success.

They couldn't just walk away. If they were under contract you might as well have manacled them together and had strips tattooed on.

A player wasn't just for Christmas, he was for life. Or as long as the club fancied him. Elsewhere in these pages Paul Hegarty tells us about Spurs coming in for him when he was in his mid-twenties. Hefty dough too.

Jim McLean said no. End of story. End of dream. Same with Davie Narey and Paul Sturrock. The six longest servants in that team had more than 4,000 appearances between them in Tangerine, most of them through loyalty, some through near slavery.

At least they knew clubs were in for them. Real Madrid came for Gordon Strachan at Aberdeen and the wee man never found out until he read about it in Sir Alex Ferguson's book.

But that was why clubs could build. Even when a player was out of contract they could still keep his registration and stop him moving. North Korea would have been proud.

Imagine that happening these days, a club like Real in for one of ours. All over the back pages. And if it was knocked back?We all know the script.

Agitation, agent involvement. The influence on the dressing-room if you keep him against his wishes. So even if you did breed the right batch your chances of keeping them together for a title push would be nil.

Look at that Hibs team of three years ago. They had a serious chance.

If a manager with the drive and guile of a Fergie or a Wee Jum went the distance with that side they could have been contenders.

A front three of Derek Riordan, Garry O'Connor and Steven Fletcher?

Kevin Thomson and Scott Brown in the middle of the park? Steven Whittaker and Ian Murray? Every one of them came through the ranks.

Throw in guys like Gary Caldwell and David Murphy, outsiders but youngsters who were ready to grow with them, and a couple of senior pros?

Give that team five years together and they could have been this generation's Dons. What happens though? Only one of them left - and he will be away when Real flash the cash.

Another example? In Falkirk's game with Hearts last week they made a huge play of four of their starters being kids from the academy.

They're right to be proud. And three of them are on five-year deals. Not because the club think they will still be Bairns at the end of them, mind.

Nope. The contracts are there as a security blanket so Falkirk are guaranteed decent dough when they do sell. That's the way of the world.

A world wee Jum and Fergie would have hated. But they did what they did because they could - and the history of our game is richer for their two teams.

HISTORY in the making - an image of one of Aberdeen's great days to be passed down through generations.

Grandchildren will look on in awe and ask: 'Who the hell taught them grammar?'

The players clearly knew more about trophies than the sign writers did about apostrophes. I'll maybe give them the benefit of the doubt and assume drink was taken

FRIENDS RE-UNITED: Pages 68-69