Will Aberdeen please stand up and accept the blame?

Wednesday, 24 February 2010 19:07

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Aberdeen's shameful reaction to cup defeat is turning more and more loyal supporters away

By Andrew Southwick

Out of the cup. Out of ideas. Out of their depth.

Welcome to Pittodrie, where no-one seems to care.

Aberdeen were humiliated by Raith Rovers, not once, but twice, with performances that would make a shrink cancel all meetings and retreat to his holiday home.

Bad performances happen – they certainly are not uncommon by Aberdeen's current crop of “stars” - but what is woefully inept, and downright shameful, is the Dons reaction to the latest sickener.

It has been said for many years, and the case argued for by many a Dons fanzine writer, that when the fingers of blame are pointed at the board of directors, always without question the fingers are pointed back at the fans.

The board are never at fault, never short of desire to see the club succeed, never short of ideas, never not doing enough or working hard enough behind the scenes. They are never, ever wrong.

Instead it is the fans who must shoulder the blame for the Raith Rovers result, and anything else that has gone wrong over the years.

For it was the fans who hounded out Alex Smith, and have since held wild, unrealistic expectations that have held back the club.

It is the fans who put too much pressure on the players, and who criticise managers too often, and make the job impossible to succeed in.

It is the fans who moan and whine and scowl and don't give the support the team need. Yet no matter how many of them keep turning up for punishment its never enough, they're always letting the club down.

Pathetic. Pathetic on the pitch, and pathetic the way the club treat their support off it.

You pay £5 for a cinema ticket, and the film is rubbish, you moan about it. You pay £15 for a meal, and its badly cooked, you criticise the chef and perhaps raise a complaint to the waiter.

If you pay £25 for a match ticket, or over £300 for a season ticket, and the fare you're fed is garbage, don't dare complain – only bad supporters do that.

Whether someone spat at Mark McGhee is neither here nor there. If someone did, thats one supporter; that does not represent an entire support, a support that cares more for their club than the players do. And the constant criticism of a fanbase that keeps many at Pittodrie in jobs has been going on for years.

Jock Stein once said “Football without its fans is nothing.” A Jock Stein who once stood on the motorway and waved down supporters buses heading to Dundee to let them know their game had been called off.

Aberdeen gave up caring about their support long ago. If the fans are to blame, then close the stadium and ban the lot of them. Lets then see how far the club goes.

I would dearly love to see the red army make the decision for them and walk away, to show the powers that be that they have the power to dictate things. Enough have done it already, but too many are a glutton for punishment. Too many love the club too much to stop going, but their love is doing the club no good, because no-one inside it cares any more.

Stewart Milne and his board of directors say they can't put money into the club because it would destabilise it. I don't doubt him; if you raise wages for players who clearly aren't up to scratch, and make your intention clear to opponents you're ready to throw silly money at them for their average players, then the club will certainly roll back the years.

However, it won't be to Alex Ferguson's era, it'll be to the days of Roy Aitken spending £1 million on Paul Bernard, just because he could. Money doesn't always buy you happiness, as them times showed. It has been 15 years of hurt, with the amount of players Dons fans could legitimately class as heroes able to be counted on one hand.

However, Milne could quite easily put his money into other areas of the club.

Considering the fans have been subjected to such rubbish these past few years, why not pay for their season tickets Stewart? You have the money, why not pay for every current season ticket holders' book for next season? Then, sell the rest of the seats for half price.

If you don't fill the stadium you'll get close enough. Would 17,000 – 18,000 fans every week, spending money within the stadium and - more importantly than any of that, actually being there to back the team – not help the club?

The club harbour plans for a 22,000 seater stadium. How they plan to fill it with the way they currently treat their support is something that can only be answered within the bowls of the current ramshackle stadium.

Offering cheap entry, with Stewart Milne – not the club – stumping up the cash would be one way of patching up their differences. It would be one way of saying thanks to the thousands of fans who still keep that sorry club afloat.

Now I'm not privy to Aberdeen's accounts, however I can hazard a guess at what this would cost Stewart Milne.

The club currently has around 8,000 season ticket holders, who pay an average price of around £300 each. That's actually more than the average but we'll work up the way to price a maximum cost. That comes to £2,400,000. With the way the support is draining currently, they'll be lucky to sell half that for next season anyway.

The average gate at Pittodrie is around 10,000 for non-Old Firm games, and is falling by the week and will continue to do so until the end of the season. The club can not be making any money out of them figures – in fact Willie Miller has been on record before to say that they need an average crowd of 14,000 to break even.

So does making 12,000 season tickets half price, having them snapped up, and watching more money roll in from the food outlets, programme sales and club shop purchases bring the club to its knees? I'd be surprised if that was the case.

In the likely event the plea will fall on deaf ears (it will be sent to the club, it won't be replied to), then what next for Aberdeen?

Well, in truth, Armageddon hasn't arrived just yet. The club has failed to win silverware again, and barring a minor miracle will not improve upon last season, which was dire too.

However, they are not a million miles away from Hibernian and Dundee United in terms of quality. If they finish behind them this season, then there's always next year.

They may even pick themselves up, finish in fifth, and sneak into Europe should two of the top four contest the Scottish Cup final.

However none of this would be possible without the fans. All they have to do is walk away, and Stewart Milne would then be forced to plough his money in to make up the shortfall.

Why not just do it now Stewart? 

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