If you read Willie Miller’s Aberdeen Dream Team book which he published a few years ago he had this to say about former Dons midfielder Gordon Strachan – “One of the reasons Gordon is in my Dream Team is his fantastic attitude to the game and how it would rub off on others. He would never give up, would chase lost causes, and always provide the spark required to unlock defenses. He always set a magnificent example to younger professionals, and he was the one man I would tell youngsters to look at and learn from”. High praise, indeed, from Aberdeen’s greatest ever player. The praise is absolutely justified! Gordon, like so many of his former team-mates, is a hero of mine. Whenever I played football as a wee boy up at the links in Newburgh, I wanted to be either him, Willie Miller, or Peter Weir. Gordon has been on my radar for a number of months since starting this blog, and I was delighted to talk to him recently, from his home in England, about his time at Pittodrie. We covered a number of topics, including a certain free-kick, and beating the mighty Real Madrid, but we began right at the beginning and the process which saw him sign for the Dons.

Gordon looks back and recalls: “Tommy Gemmell (Dundee manager) wanted more what we call, ‘muscle’, in the middle of the field; there was a deal to be done as Billy McNeill thought I would be OK and fit in fine to his plans. I can’t overly recall the difference in money, but it wasn’t much. It was enough to get me a twenty-pound rise in my wage, so that was enough back in those days for me to make the move. At that time Aberdeen was not the club it would go on to be, it was a club that was just ticking over. If we could win a cup every ten years the fans and everybody involved with the club would be happy. If you managed that, you were elevated to legendary status. That was basically what the club was like back in the late seventies. We had such big characters at Pittodrie at that time; Davie Robb and Drew Jarvie immediately spring to mind, they were real men! They played the game in a real man’s way; it wasn’t a family as such as that became later. It was, basically, a bunch of lads coming together to play a game of football”

In his first full season with the Dons, Gordon, under the stewardship of Billy McNeill, surprisingly only played sixteen games. Aberdeen, that season, finished second behind Rangers in the League, losing the title on the final day of the League campaign. More misery was to come in the shape of the Scottish Cup Final as they lost their first game of the calendar year against Rangers. Despite the obvious disappointments the club was making positive strides to becoming a force in the Scottish game. Towards the end of that season rumblings of a new manager echoed through the corridors of Pittodrie after Celtic had come calling for one of their favourite sons. It’s testimony to the club at that time that Billy McNeill did not take the decision to leave lightly, but leave he did. Gordon recalls that time quite vividly. “It was near the end of the 1977/78 season. Billy had done such a good job and got us to the Scottish Cup Final, and if you get to a final when you play for a team outside the Old Firm you are deemed as a tactical genius. I’m not saying Billy wasn’t, but that’s the way you were judged. It’s funny as you can actually get to a Cup Final by playing two teams from Division 3, one from Division 1 and maybe one Premier League side, and before you know it you have reached a major Cup Final and become a legend! It’s basically four rounds of football to be played. If you did that in a League run you wouldn’t think too much about it, but because it’s the cup you become a tactical genius. That’s just my overall thoughts on cup competitions; it’s the League where I believe you are determined as top manager or a top player, which obviously goes hand-in-hand”

Upon Billy McNeill’s return to his spiritual home all involved with the Dons wondered who would be next to occupy the manager’s office. Billy’s 1967 European Cup winning team-mate Bertie Auld was hotly tipped, but what proved to be a stroke of genius from the board of directors little known Alex Ferguson was appointed in the summer of 1978. His impact was immediate, but did all players sing from Fergie’s hymn sheet in the early days? Gordon remembers that time well. “He was a driven manager. I can see other managers maybe make the same mistake. Because of his success at St Mirren, he kept referring to players from his St Mirren team like Tony Fitzpatrick, Billy Stark and Jackie Copeland. It’s a little bit like what Jose Mourinho was doing at Manchester United for a while, where he kept referring to his previous success. It was slightly different as he was talking about his success as a manager at other clubs and how he had always been successful and this group wasn’t. What Fergie was doing, in regards to naming his players at St Mirren, was becoming draining on us as a group. We all knew about how good these players were, but we wanted to become better players, so we wanted him to focus more on that. Alex did what he had to do, which was to get everybody on his side. You will always get older guys who find it difficult to change, which meant you can either change, or you find your services surplus to requirements. That’s exactly what happened. Some changed, some left. Alex had been left with some decent players that Billy had brought in; we had Stevie Archibald, Ian Scanlon and me- saying that, I wasn’t very good under Billy McNeill, but there was a nucleus of some very decent players. Alex had this burning desire to destroy the Old Firm, Rangers in particular. I always had that feeling it was Rangers more so. So that was us off on our journey with a touch of turbulence on the way”, Gordon chuckles.

In Alex Ferguson’s first season in charge (1978/79), the Dons finished a disappointing fourth place in the League and lost out again to Rangers, this time in the League Cup Final. The following year (1979/80), Bobby Clark and Alex Ferguson, in particular, continued to spread a positive message around the club – that it was possible to win a League title, that it was possible to break the Old Firm dominance. Without warning, Aberdeen, as spring blossomed in April 1980, had to go to Celtic Park twice in the space of three weeks knowing both games had to be won to be in with a serious chance of winning the League. It was a task fraught with difficulty but Gordon, as well as his team-mates, started to recognise something special was very much on the horizon. “We started to believe after our second victory at Celtic Park, which was a real test of character. We had to go there twice in three weeks, and we knew we had to win those games to be in with a chance. They were both incredible performances. Don’t forget, both games were played on bumpy pitches; horrible pitches if you like. Everything was set up against us, it was very hard to beat these types of teams away from home, but we went there and got two incredible victories. Once the third goal went in from the game on the Wednesday night it was like; ‘We can win this now’. Then all the pressure was thrown onto us. From having no pressure whatsoever to winning those games the pressure was like; ‘Wow, this is different!” It was a place that none of us had ever been before, so it was a journey we were headed into; we couldn’t relate to it. The older players would say to us; ‘It’s not a problem, just calm down’. They would advise us how to deal with it in their own way. At that time none of us had that, Alex Ferguson did not have that, so it was a journey we had to deal with, everything was so new to us”

The lads did deal with the pressure and wrapped up the League title with aplomb after breezing past Hibs 5-0 at Easter Road in the penultimate League game of the season. It was Aberdeen’s first League Championship for twenty-five years! We have all seen the scenes of jubilation at full-time with Alex Ferguson, in particular, running around the park like a man possessed; magnificent memories that have been treasured by so many. The question I asked Gordon – how did you deal with your own emotions at full-time? “It was relief. You can see the TV pictures that show we are celebrating. For me, personally, it was just sheer relief as it was a long season. If you look at the pitches that you see today, it was not like that back then as for 50% of the time it was a real slog; we went to play football, but 50% of the time it was nothing but a fight. It was just a relief to get it over with, if I’m being honest with you”

For season 1980/81 the Dons now entered unknown territory – the European Cup! Austrian Champions Austria Memphis had to be negotiated first. The Dons took a slender 1-0 lead to the Ernst Happel Stadion in Vienna for the second leg and put in one of their finest away European performances to hold the Austrians to a 0-0 draw, putting the lads through to the second round where the might of Liverpool lay in wait. Ahead of the first game at Pittodrie, Liverpool manager Bob Paisley lavished praise on Gordon Strachan in his pre-match press conference in an attempt to soften him up. I wondered if that exercise in reverse phycology meant trepidation or excitement for Gordon. “Definitely excitement because we had just beaten the Austrian Champions. We had won the League the previous season by beating a very good Celtic side on the way. We had a decent side, but we knew within a couple of minutes that we weren’t as good as we thought we were”, Gordon laughs! “The problem was it wasn’t just a normal goal they scored; it was an extraordinary goal they scored so, from then on, we played with total respect towards Liverpool. In the build-up to that game we did not have video analysis like you do today, so Sir Alex had three team meetings and each one was about ninety minutes long. We believed we had everything covered, but what Sir Alex didn’t do was tell us about this goal that Terry McDermott was going to score very early in the game. That game was a reality check, not that we were big headed or anything like that, but we did have a belief in ourselves. That game, as well as the second leg at Anfield, helped bring us back down to earth, that’s for sure”

Losing the tie 5-0 on aggregate was a reality check. Alex Ferguson banned all his players from laughing on the bus on the journey home; if anybody was caught a ten quid fine was automatically handed out. The result irked Fergie for months. A year later a mild form of retribution came in the shape of Ipswich Town, the UEFA Cup holders. Aberdeen knocked out Bobby Robson’s men 4-2 on aggregate after a dominating second-leg performance at Pittodrie. I asked Gordon if that result had somewhat made up for the Liverpool defeats. “We didn’t think about it like that back then. It’s only when I look back that I say; ‘Yeah OK, we did really well there’. As far as I was concerned it was just another team to beat. Ipswich were top of the English First Division at the time, they were a really good side, a top side in fact, and we went to Portman Road and came away with a very comfortable 1-1 draw. Then we beat them 3-1 at Pittodrie. We were really coming on as a team at that time, we were all getting better, individually and collectively, so, yes, I believe those games against Ipswich was a real turning point”

Unfortunately, the Dons would fall at the third stage of the competition after two very difficult games against SV Hamburg who, boasted in their ranks German legends such as Felix Magath and Franz Beckenbauer to name but two. The Dons, though, made strides in the League ending up second behind eventual Champions Celtic, who only won the title on the final day of the season, and reaching their first Scottish Cup Final for four years. Rangers once again stood in the way of a potential first triumph since 1970! Having thrashed John Greig’s side 4-0 only days before in the League, did that stop any nerves kicking in ahead of that game? “No, not before the Cup Final. I think it is more excitement than anything, so I didn’t feel any nerves ahead of that game, none whatsoever! There was talk we could get beaten, obviously by the caliber of team we were playing against. We knew that, but for me, and most of the lads, it was just sheer excitement that we were going to play in a Scottish Cup Final. To be honest my mind was taken off the game as Lesley (Gordon’s wife) had just given birth to our second son Craig on the Wednesday ahead of the final at twenty past eight in the morning. We got to the hospital at eight, Craig was born twenty minutes later, and I left again at half past as the bus was leaving to go to training at nine o’clock! Poor Lesley was left on her todd with Craig, and I was off as I did not want to upset Mr Ferguson. I said to her: “I’m sorry, but I have to go. All the best”, Gordon laughs! It’s not like it is today where you can get a few days off training. That was the day Alex (McLeish) scored his goal in training on the beach at Cruden Bay and replicated exactly the same goal in the game itself, which was incredible”

If you ask most fans of my generation (born 1972) that goal by Alex McLeish is up there with one of the best ever witnessed. I recall my late dad edging out of his seat at Hampden Park as the ball curled towards the top bin screaming; ‘it’s going in’. What a moment that was when the net rippled! Without further breakthrough during the ninety-minutes extra-time loomed. Like Alex’s goal, Gordon’s goal is also etched in my memory bank as our seats that day in the Main Stand sat just about in line with the bye-line. After Gordon gave the Dons a commanding 3-1 lead, I swear Gordon ran towards us looking directly into my eyes – or I would like to think so anyway! Those are my memories but, more importantly, what about Gordon’s recollections of that moment. “Not long before my goal I recall getting cramp during extra-time. I went round the goalkeeper at one point and it hit me and as I went over him. Normally I would put my hands forward to break my fall but, that day, because the cramp hit me in my thighs, I put my hands down to my legs and used my face to break the fall to the ground and bust my lip and nose in the process! What I also vividly recall from that extra-time period was Alex Miller hobbling as Mark McGhee went around him to set up my goal. Alex and I used to work together, and I constantly reminded him of the moment he retired from football. I would say to him; ‘What a strange time to retire, during extra-time in a Scottish Cup Final”, Gordon laughs loudly.

That Scottish Cup triumph set Aberdeen up for their most famous of crusades, the 1982/83 Cup Winners Cup campaign! For this part of the chat I wanted to skip forward to the Bayern Munich games. For the first leg in Munich Gordon was returning from a hamstring injury which had kept him out for just over a month. Thankfully, for that game Gordon was fit enough to take his place on a freezing cold bench alongside Bryan Gunn, John Hewitt, Andy Watson and Derek Hamilton. The task in hand was an obvious one! “Alex Ferguson had been at Bayern’s training the night before the game and asked a Bayern official; ‘How often have you been beaten at home in Europe’. The official replied ‘none’, so we knew we were in for a very hard game as there was names we had only seen on TV; your Paul Breitner’s and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge’s. I do believe, though, that because we were so young, we had absolutely no fear whatsoever because success and winning had become a part of our thinking. It’s not that we were arrogant, we just looked forward to every game, and the lads got a terrific result over there. I came on as a second-half substitute. Dougie Bell was absolutely magnificent that night; it was a monster performance in midfield so a ‘well-done’ to Sir Alex for getting that spot on”

That 0-0 draw in the Olympic Stadium has been widely credited as one of the Dons best-ever performances away from home in a European competition. There is a credible argument to suggest the lads were seriously unlucky not to come away with a slender lead for the 2nd leg at Pittodrie. Fast forward two weeks to the 16th March 1983, the greatest night ever witnessed at the old stadium. With less than fifteen minutes left to play the Germans led the tie 2-1, a monumental effort was now required to turn the game on its head. Then came the most ingenious moments ever seen by the Red Army – the Gordon Strachan/John McMaster free-kick routine. Simple question – whose idea was it? “I can’t really remember how it developed; it was just one of those things that evolved from training. I think there was one routine where I had my hand on the ball and attempted a cross from a bending position, almost like a squat position, so the idea just came from one of those many different routines. I’ve always said that free-kick created two goals. For the goal itself from the free-kick, we had to get everything right. I do believe Bayern were still in shock. They were blaming the goalkeeper, they were blaming the center-halves, complaining about where they were standing. They were still arguing when we scored the third goal. They lost focus. I believe that free-kick cost them two goals”

Bayern Munich dispatched, Waterschei humped! Now to Gothenburg and the mighty Real Madrid who, up that point, had been crowned European Champions on six different occasions. It was a stereotypical David v Goliath meeting. Plans and preparations had been ongoing for weeks leading up to the final. In previous blogs I have spoken to a number of Gordon’s team-mates who played that night and asked for their feelings in the build-up to the game. Gordon as expected took it all in his stride! “Absolutely no feelings, no fear whatsoever. We had nothing to lose! We were on a journey that was going upwards. Winning was part of our mentality. We had won the Scottish Cup in 82’, 83’ and 84’. I then went to Manchester United and won the FA Cup in 85’. I used to think that this was meant to happen every season. I think semi-finals are more nerve racking than finals. Finals are great. The final against Real Madrid was just a thrill, which is what you did as a kid, when we were playing on the streets. You either wanted to be Real Madrid, or in my case Hibs versus Real Madrid. Real Madrid was always in your dreams somewhere along the line, or your fantasy, and there I was, living out my fantasy for real”

You don’t need me to tell you what happened next. In a previous blog with Willie Miller he told me how he believed Aberdeen absolutely battered Real Madrid that night. In fact all of my subject matters when talking about that game fully concur with their captain’s sentiments. Gordon is no different. “Oh yeah, we were the dominant force. We were a group of players who, as a team shape, were far better. As individuals, on the night, we were far better. I’ve got to say, at the end of the game, by looking at them, and talking to them, including their manager, Alfredo di Stefano, they knew they had just been beaten by the better team. There was none of the histrionics that you usually get from the Spanish teams where they moan at the referee or are jumping about pushing and shoving. It was a case of right, we have just been beaten, let’s get off the pitch and let these guys enjoy themselves. I honestly did not think it was a huge thing for Aberdeen Football Club to be beating Real Madrid because I just believed that is what we were supposed to be doing. We were beating teams like Rangers and Celtic, they had won European trophies, so it was just part of the deal that we won European trophies. It wasn’t like Leicester winning the Premier League or something ridiculous like that. People were talking about us, people were thinking what a good side we were, it was not like one of these fairy-tale rides as we had already grown into this. Teams didn’t want to play us, so I really didn’t think winning the Cup Winners Cup was such a big deal”

To try and find words to fit the magnitude of that victory is near nigh impossible. The boys who played that night only started to realize what had been achieved in the hours after the event. Peter Weir, John Hewitt and Willie Miller all told me it was only upon returning to Aberdeen and stepping on the bus for the open-top parade through the city that the significance of what they had actually achieved started to sink in. I asked Gordon exactly the same question, his answer somewhat took me by surprise, but I could not help but smile at his response. “I’ve got to say, I’ve only watched the Cup Winners Cup Final back once since the actual game itself. It was on a cold January morning a few years back when I had nothing to do. I was on my own that morning, and I just had an inkling to watch the game. After I watched it I called big Alex who, at the time, was the manager at Aston Villa, and I said to him; “By the way, we were not that bad”. I always thought we were just a hard working side who got about the pitch, did this, and did that, and were very functional. Looking back on that DVD it made me realise how good we actually were. I did not appreciate how good we were as a team. When I was watching the game there were so may incidents that happened that had slipped my memory, but the one I really remember was the free-kick Real had right at the end of the game and Peter Weir standing in the wall moaning and groaning and praying to god! It’s made me appreciate more what a good side we were”

For the club as a whole those few days in the immediate aftermath of winning the Cup Winners Cup was like being stuck in a never-ending whirlwind. Three days after Gothenburg the Dons faced Hibs on the final day of the League campaign before another Scottish Cup Final against Rangers had to be navigated a week later. I asked Gordon to explain what those few days were like for him and his team-mates. “We played Hibs on the Saturday after we had won the Cup Winners Cup and comfortably won 5-0. There was still adrenalin pumping from beating Real Madrid, so the adrenalin was still there. Once the Hibs game came and went, we had a couple of days off and some time to relax, and that almost went ‘wow’ because I wondered how we would get going again! If the Scottish Cup Final could have been played at the beginning of the following season that would have suited us fine. We didn’t quite win the League, but the whole Cup Winners Cup campaign was fantastic, and it was almost like we were on a downer after winning it. We knew we had to get back up for the game against Rangers a week later and it was very hard work that’s for sure”

The 1983 Scottish Cup Final v Rangers was not exactly one for the purists but the Dons retained the trophy after Eric Black’s headed goal in extra-time did prove to be the winner. In what is now his infamous TV interview directly after the full-time whistle Alex Ferguson laid into his boys describing the performance as ‘disgraceful’. He was adamant that only Willie Miller and Alex McLeish had won the cup for Aberdeen that Saturday afternoon at Hampden. That interview did not go down well at all in the dressing-room. I asked Gordon if Fergie, for a while, lost his players after that episode. “No, he never lost anybody, but we disliked him immensely on the bus on the way back to St Andrews. To be honest, it’s turned into one of the funniest stories I now tell which is wonderful. People ask me about it all the time and I tell them I think it’s fantastic. Sir Alex has done worse, especially behind closed doors, but when you look at the clip it’s actually hilarious. We were all sitting in the dressing-room thinking we had done really well, winning all these trophies. We almost won the League, we played about sixty games in that season, and he’s going off his rocker. At the time it was not funny because for most cup finals the wives get to enjoy the occasion as much as we do and they were meant to join us on the bus on the way back to St Andrews. Fergie would not allow the wives on the bus because he felt we were a bunch of losers and here’s me looking down and staring at my cup winning medals! I took the hump during the reception; I left after about an hour as everybody was feeling really down. Nobody was laughing, nobody was speaking, nobody was doing anything, so I decided to head out to Perth to go and have a drink with a pal of mine. It was very disappointing at the time and we were all thinking; ‘You are nuts. But even on the bus journey up the road we all managed to have a good laugh about it. We dared John McMaster to head to the front of the bus where Fergie was sitting and ask him if we could stop off somewhere ahead of St Andrews to have a drink”, Gordon laughs! “We all knew this was never going to happen, but it didn’t stop us having a bit of a laugh. Alex (McLeish) constantly reminds me if I still have the medal from that game that he and Willie Miller won it for me and my team-mates that day”, Gordon laughs again!

Gordon had been with Aberdeen for five years and was now not just an integral member of that side but a multiple winner. Despite that there were rumblings in his head that maybe it was time to move on. I asked him when those thoughts first began. “It was after the 1982 World Cup. Alex (McLeish) and I thought it might be a good time to move on because we had seen things and played against players that were different. I had spoken to players who played for Manchester United and Liverpool while I was away with Scotland and just fancied something else. It was not so much the money because there really wasn’t that much difference, but I just felt I was a bit tired and started to think if I should move on. We both went to see the manager and Alex ushered me forward to go in first and then he never appeared! I was told in no uncertain terms to go forth and multiply! To be brutally honest that was the best thing that ever happened to me because, in the following two-year period that I asked for a transfer, I won all sorts of trophies and have incredible memories so it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. As football players we all have moments of stupidity and one of those moments is when I asked the manager for a transfer, so I’m grateful that never materialized”

Gordon’s farewell came in the shape of the 1984’ Scottish Cup Final v Celtic. The Dons had wrapped up their first League title in four years against Hearts two weeks previously so the preparations for the game could not have been better. Everybody was fit and looking forward to another showcase event at the national stadium but, for Gordon, it wasn’t fitness or his place in the starting XI that worried him; for a number of weeks he had been fighting with his soul. “The three months leading up to my final game was difficult in terms of wondering what I was going to do next. I had a few options, including going to either Italy or Germany; my mind was turning over, plus I was getting towards twenty-seven years old and I had no money in the bank as such – we just lived and that was it. If I stopped playing in four of five years’ time, I had no money to fall back on, so I was conscious that I needed to make a decent living for my family’s sake. I needed to make sure in my own mind that my next move was the correct one; I had these thoughts for going on six months or so! Mark McGhee followed suit a little bit later on, and we used to sit at night and have chats about what we were going to do, and then we had to switch on again for the games. Fortunately, we were both strong minded enough that when games started we were absolutely fine and it never affected us on the pitch, but there was a bit of friction at the time with Sir Alex. It was the first time Sir Alex had a team that was going to break up on him which meant he was worried, there’s no doubt about it, he was a little bit scared that he was going to lose two or three of his best players so that was spooking him. It all became a little bit fractious but we dealt with it because we all had loyalty to the team and that showed when we won the Scottish Cup against Celtic”

As Gordon collected yet another winner’s medal, he turned to the Aberdeen fans, lifted the Scottish Cup high and gave a farewell wave. That wave was tinged with sadness, but the lure of Manchester United was too good an opportunity to turn down; another chapter in his glittering football career was about to begin. Gordon played 292 games for Aberdeen, scoring 89 goals along the way. He won seven major honours with the club as well as being named the Scottish Football Writer’s Association Player of the Year for season 1979/80. I had one final question for him – if he could change one thing from his time at Aberdeen, what would he change. His answer epitomizes his character! “The time I went and got a perm. There are some rare pictures of me sporting a perm and whatever club I was at big Alex would anonymously send the club secretary photos of me with my perm! They were very trendy back then and everybody had a perm. All the lads were getting it done so I thought I would join in, but perms on folk with ginger hair are really not on. I was Mick Hucknall before Mick Hucknall! It only lasted about three weeks because I was meant to look after it but I didn’t. When I slept at night with my head to one side, I would wake in the morning and my hair looked like I was stuck in a permanent breeze coming from the East! It was always slightly falling to one side so I got rid of that perm quite quickly! Everybody else was looking not so bad, but mine was horrendous”, Gordon laughs!

I first met Gordon while working for Setanta Sports in Glasgow. I can clearly recall the excitement I felt when he was announced as the new Celtic Manager (purely from a professional point-of-view you understand) after former boss Martin O’Neill stepped down. I knew at the time I would be working in close proximity with him and a professional relationship would have to be built. I met him for the first time as I waited inside the Celtic Park reception area, quite nervously may I add; in he breezed, caught my eye and said ‘give me a minute please Ally’. Christ he knew my name!! I came across all silly for a moment and then quickly regained my composure – ‘no problems Mr Strachan’ I replied. It dawned on me that he must have been watching Celtic TV to get a flavor of what we, as a channel, were all about. From that moment I have to say Gordon was fantastic throughout the eighteen months I worked with him, never did he decline an interview, and was always receptive and open to ideas. Looking back though, I do think I may have been a touch annoying as we conducted our final technical checks before the actual interview began; all I ever did was ask him about his time at Pittodrie!! When I left for Singapore not long after my dad died, he kindly offered me his continued support; we have remained in touch ever since. It makes me appreciate how lucky I am!