Scottish Football's Greatest 100: Andrew Southwick picks his top five

 
Willie Miller:
 
The best quote I've heard since The Away End launched our search last week was from STV's Thomas Watt: "If Willie Miller is not in anyone's team, I'd consider that a spoiled ballot paper."
 
It's to be expected free-scoring strikers and skilful midfielders will dominate the list, but for me the greatest player ever to grace Scottish football was Willie Miller.
 
Consider the sides Scotland had in the 80's - a strong Celtic, Jim McLean's fantastic Dundee United team, the St Mirren side at the start of the decade, Greame Souness' Rangers at the end, and Hearts double chasers midway through. All top teams, but none of them got to the heights of Alex Ferguson's Gothenburg Greats, and one of them reasons to me was because they didn't have anyone close to Willie Miller marshalling their defence. Stick Miller in any of their sides and life could have been so different for all of them.
 
Not only a great leader who went into games thinking only of victory, in his prime he was perhaps one of the best penalty box defenders in the world. Don't take my word for it, that's the words of the great Sir Alex Ferguson. Even that does him a disservice; Dons fans simply know him as "God".
 
Brian Laudrup:
 
I remember when Laudrup signed for Rangers, and Scotland being considerably underwhelmed. The real eyebrow raiser was that Basile Boli had moved to Ibrox. The man who had scored the Champions League winning goal for Marseille showed the impressive financial might Walter Smith's men had, and the capture of Laudrup appeared to be them merely showing off, almost an impulse buy if you will.

Ebbe Skovdahl, the Danish one-time manager of Aberdeen, would be welcome back in the Granite City any time by most Dons fans. Whimsical, friendly enough to be everyone's favourite uncle, always good for a humerous quote, and probably the manager of the last semi-attractive Aberdeen team to watch.

However, if he ever knocks on my door looking for a cup of tea and a bacon roll, he better come waving the white flag. For my war with Ebbe Skovdahl began the night the Dons headed to Ibrox for a midweek League Cup tie twelve years ago. En-route to Glasgow to see what then was a mere nine year jinx, we heard Skovdahl had left Eoin Jess out of the squad. Not because of injury, but because he had questioned the club's ambition. He would never play for the Dons again.

It wasn't the exit the Portsoy loon deserved.

You can't write an epilogue of Eoin Jess' time at Pittodrie without using the word "potential". A man who was constantly accused throughout his career of never reaching the heights he should have.

However, what were these heights? More Scotland caps and trophies? Never elevating to a bigger platform? Perhaps, but Jess was guilty of choosing to spend too long at a club in decline. Had he left when the big clubs first came calling after he stole the show against Torino in the Stadio Deli Alpi in 1993, he may well have doubled his caps, his career earnings and trophy count. However, when it came to producing for his hometown team - especially in a bog standard Aberdeen side - Jess generally didn't disappoint.

As an 18 year old he helped Alex Smith and Jocky Scott's side sink Rangers at Hampden in the 1989 League Cup final. More trips to Hampden and league title challenges were the norm as Jess, surrounded by top class players like Hans Guilhaus, Charlie Nicholas and his fellow young prodigee Scott Booth, began to establish himself as a fans favourite. Scoring all four goals in a victory over Dunfermline didn't hurt his reputation either.

A leg break against Clydebank in the 92/93 season stifled his progress, and he cut a frustrated figure on the bench as Rangers marched into an early 2-0 lead in the 1993 Scottish Cup final, with Jess eventually deployed too late to produce one of his magic shows against the 'Gers. Boy, did he generally set the heather alight when red faced blue.

Although Jess began his career in a free flowing, free scoring Aberdeen side who were always hunting trophies, season by season the Dons waned. Big player after big player left. Jess moved to midfield, but his enforcer and partner Lee Richardson soon grew tired of the referees attention and exited, with Paul Bernard a meak and injury prone replacement.

Even a star packed Aberdeen side in 1994/95 did nothing more than fight relegation, and you wondered if the peak of his career had gone by before his 25th birthday.

Then things changed. The Dons found their form and passion. The fans found their voice. Aberdeen, from the depths of despair, somehow scrapped their way up from the exit door and beat relegation to full houses. Under Roy Aitken, Jess and Aberdeen had found a second wind, and from his midfield berth he was back doing what he did best; teasing and tormenting, dictating the pace, and when up against Rangers he had that knack of scoring some incredible goals.

Chesting the ball down, turning and firing in a volley at Ibrox; driving through the Rangers defence and hitting a rocket into the top corner at the other end of the pitch; another piledriver at Pittodrie. He relished the big games, and the fans loved him for it. Even as Rangers and Celtic spent their millions, they couldn't get their hands on the Dons golden boy, and their expensive imports couldn't get near him on the pitch.

That was never more evident than the night Paul Gascoigne made his Hampden debut for Rangers in the 1995 League Cup Semi-final. The Geordie genius was meant to turn up, control the midfield, and put the eight-in-a-row chasers into the final. Instead, Jess had one of his finest nights in the red shirt.

As Gazza huffed and puffed, Jess jinked and tricked. Heading down the right hand side he beat four players, turned, and beat them again. He took the ball from his own half, drifted through the Rangers midfield, before setting up Billy Dodds for the opener. At one point as Aberdeen passed Rangers to death, orchestrated by their number 11, Jess drifted wide to the left, received the ball in space, flicked it into the air and began doing keepy-ups, before placing it down and finding his man as the travelling Red Army roared his name.

 

Dim lights

His name was made again, and the big clubs came calling. It was no suprise that he decided to eventually leave, but what raised eyebrows was that he chose Gordon Strachan's struggling Coventry City. He scored early on in his move, but wouldn't net again except for an own goal v Man Utd. Falling out of favour, he returned to Aberdeen in 1997. In truth, it was a move he should never have made.

By then Aberdeen were a shadow of even the side he'd originally left. Roy Aitken was in the last throes of his reign, and Alex Miller was as uninspiring an appointment as the Dons faithful could have hoped for.

Jess was bogged down in a side that didn't seem to have a second gear to raise itself to. On the 5th December 1998, as Alex Miller's last game ended in a farcical 4-0 defeat to Kilmarnock, Dons fans chanted "We've only got one player" as Jess tried in vain to raise something out of his team-mates. He probably kept Aberdeen up that season.

After his second exit, he went back to have another crack at the English Premiership to prove his doubters wrong, and responded by being Bradford City's top scorer.

Jess was a victim of loyalty, and his commitment shouldn't be underplayed, especially when you compare it to Sone Aluko's recent deflection to the west coast, or the early moves south made by David Goodwillie, Scott Allan, Chris Maguire and Jack Grimmer.

Them guys may never reach their potential either. Even if they do, they'll do very well to earn the same legendary status anywhere that Jess holds in the North-east.
 
Ally McCoist:
 
Growing up as an Aberdeen fan, it was hard to idolise Rangers players. However, I'm unashamed to say that Ally McCoist was one of my heroes.
 
Perhaps it was because I was a huge fan of the Roy of the Rovers comic. Every week I'd read Roy's amazing goalscoring achievements. Every Saturday Ally McCoist made Roy's cartoonist look devoid of ideas as he wrote his own unbelievable story.
 
Who can forget him coming back from a leg break to score the winer in the 1993 League Cup final? Not by any old goal either, but by an overhead kick.
 
One of my earliest Scotland memories was of Andy Roxburgh's side 2-0 down in Berne to Switzerland. Scotland got it back to 2-1, then McCoist, in the dying minutes, hooked the ball under the 'keepers legs and kept Scotland on course for Euro 92. There was no fear, for with Super Ally on the pitch you knew he'd score.
 
You can try and pick faults in his armour, but he always scored. It was almost as if he invented the word "striker".
 
I had a hard time picking number five. First I was going for Neil McCann, a hugely underrated player who was brilliant especially for Hearts, Rangers and Scotland.
 
I also considered Paul Gascoigne, Pauli Di Canio and Lee Richardson, different types of players but cult heroes at their clubs.
 
There is also of course Henrik Larsson, a goal machine for Celtic who perhaps was Scottish football's greatest bargain.
 
However for number five I've went for what may seem a surprise choce in Charlie Nicholas.
 
There were far more potent strikers in Scotland, but Nicholas makes it in for his courage in the 1990 Scottish Cup Final.
 
It was Scottish football's worst kept secret that Champagne Charlie was heading back to his first love Celtic that summer. The Parkhead club faced Aberdeen in the Hampden showpiece, needing victory to book a place in Europe or face non-qualification for the first time in twelve years. That put Nicholas in an awful position, win the cup but move to a club afterwards who then had no European football to look forward to.
 
As the 90 minutes and extra-time finished 0-0 and the game went to penalties, the moment Nicholas must have been dreading all week came. Celtic had missed their first pen, meaning it was heading towards Nicholas scoring to win the cup for Aberdeen. That moment was turned on it's head when the fourth penalty was missed by Brian Grant.
 
Now, with the game effectively in sudden death, Charlie Nicholas stepped up knowing if he missed, Celtic won the cup.
 
As he took the long walk from the centre circle chants of "Charlie Charlie" rang around Hampden, but not from the Aberdeen fans he was walking towards, but from the mass Celtic support filling the rest of the ground. Had he failed to convert the conspiracy theories would have continued to this day.
 
Nicholas did what he had to do, and with nerves of steel sent Pat Bonner the wrong way, and eight penalties later Aberdeen were Scottish Cup winners.