In December 2010, Aberdeen finally got the manager they needed. Mark McGhee's tenure in the Pittodrie hotseat was an utter disaster; not fiery and spectacular like the Hindenburg, but cold, slow and chilling, like the Titanic. With the team looking as likely to win as a gambler who has walked under a ladder and smashed a mirror on his way to the roulette table, it was clear that chairman Stewart Milne needed an experienced, seasoned captain to steady his ailing ship.
Former Scotland manager Craig Brown seemed the perfect fit; Brown had proven that, even having turned 70, he could still fight fires, having turned in results at Motherwell almost immediately after replacing the erratic Jim Gannon. On a tight budget too. Whilst the football was hardly Barcelona, it was not exactly Catenaccio either. And Milne, like many other Scots, no doubt had fond, oak-ageing memories of the fact that Brown's Scotland side, as dour as a Gordon Brown speech, nevertheless was a solid as granite, meticulously organized, and, most importantly, did well (better than his successors, at least).
Brown was the perfect fit for Aberdeen, and Aberdeen was the perfect fit for Brown; the sleeping giant, a club with wonderful tradition and history, a huge but alienated fanbase just waiting to tempted back to the stands. He may be sprightly and healthy, but nevertheless this would surely be his last hurrah at the top level (in Scotland at least), an opportunity to cement his legacy as one of the greatest Scottish coaches of the last twenty years.
Ten months later, Brown's Aberdeen have won only 9 and drawn 7 out of 31 league games. Their opening 8 SPL matches of the new season have produced a solitary win, over Inverness in a game which, even allowing for my bias in favour of their opponents, they did not really deserve to win. I'm pretty sure they were tenth in the league when McGhee was sacked. Their position now? Tenth.
And, following on from his predecessors, Brown has now managed to embarrassingly lose a cup tie to a lower division team; McGhee had Raith Rovers, Calderwood had Dunfermline, Queen of the South (in a semi final after knocking out Celtic in the quarters) and Queen's Park, and now Paw Broon has seen the Dons succumb to East Fife. Having got themselves out of jail, and into extra time, with an injury-time penalty that looked softer than a bowel motion after a curry, they then managed to arse up the shootout.
There was a lot of goodwill in the North-East for Brown when he took charge. Not only has it evaporated, but it has reformed into clouds of apathy that are pouring a shower of derision on him and his side. (Did I try too hard to extend that metaphor? Probably)
The knives aren't out for him yet...there is a feeling that, if Craig Brown can't succeed here, who can? And who would want this poisoned chalice of a job, which appears to curse all coaches so that they take the post as a decent coach with a solid reputation, and leave it with so little credibility that they might as well change their names to 'Gary Megson' by deed poll.
But less than 4,000 turned up for this midweek League Cup humiliation. Less than double that were at the home league match with Kilmarnock last weekend, where Aberdeen showed a rare glimpse of backbone by earning a draw from a 2-0 deficit. These are fans who vote with their feet; as a student I attended a Pittodrie clash with the same opponent on my birthday in 2002, when Ebbe Skovdahl's side were battling it out for third in the table. The attendance was over 15,000, even though the away support consisted of three men and a dog.
You'd be daft to bet against Broonie turning this around. But, whilst the present is bleak for Aberdeen, there has always been optimism for the future. Right now, their current predicament appears to be a purgatory that will never end...unless it is ultimately replaced by the hell of relegation.
L.
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