A Visit to Pittodrie: Aberdeen 0 – 1 Hibernian

This past weekend I went to Pittodrie, one of British football’s most historic football arenas, to watch Aberdeen play Hibernian in the Scottish Premier League. It was to be my first ever SPL match, and a quick look at the league table didn’t fill me with much hope. Aberdeen, sleeping giants of Scottish football, are currently languishing in the lower reaches of the division, in 10th place out of twelve teams (albeit 15 points off the drop thanks to Hamilton’s shockingly poor form this season).

My father’s side of the family have lived in the north-east of Scotland for a very long time now, and he has often told me about when he visited Pittodrie back in the 1980s. Pittodrie was an all-seater stadium at this point (the second football ground in Britain to be converted so), although the ‘seats’ were rather a series of long wooden benches for the supporters to sit on.

The granite facade which forms the entrance to the Merkland Stand.

Nowadays, Pittodrie is a bit more modern, and is the fifth-largest stadium in Scotland (behind Hampden Park, Murrayfield, Celtic Park and Ibrox) with a capacity of 22,199. Aberdeen FC have a proud history, and are one of only three teams that have never been relegated from the top flight of Scottish football (the Old Firm, of course, making up the other two). The club is perhaps best known for its spell in the 1980s, when under the management of a little-known Alex Ferguson the team won a huge number of trophies, including the 1983 European Cup Winners’ Cup. Aberdeen would go on to become the only Scottish side to win two European trophies after defeating Hamburger SV in the 1983 European Super Cup.

Pittodrie has thus seen many wonderful nights, but the present-day reality is more sad. Only 7,400 spectators turned up to watch Aberdeen lose 0-1 to Hibs on Saturday, a disappointing crowd which is reflective of the malaise affecting Scottish football as a whole at the moment. The pictures below indicate how bad the situation has got – vast swathes of empty seats are visible around the pockets of supporters.

The Richard Donald Stand - probably holding more spectators than any of the other three stands.

The Main Stand - the most expensive seats are located in this stand.

The Merkland Stand - home to the family areas.

The game itself was an occasionally entertaining affair, and although my expectations were not that high, the standard of football was actually worse than I was expecting. I’ve grown up hearing stories about great Scottish footballers of the past; what I saw does not seem to be in the same tradition.

Although both teams showed signs of decent passing movement in the final third, the ball often reached that point by being hoofed up from the back, bypassing most of the midfield. The style was very direct – more like the old English tradition, not the old Scottish tradition of attractive passing football.

The goal came out of nowhere. Just as I thought Hibs no. 8 Vaz Te was demonstrating his worthlessness, he came out of nowhere to dispossess an Aberdeen defender on the edge of the Dons’ penalty area. Sliding in to steal the ball, possession fell to Vaz Te’s striking partner, Akpo Sodje, who finished low past Jamie Langfield in the Aberdeen goal. It was a decent enough strike, but Aberdeen could muster no real response before the break.

After the interval, and particularly towards the end of the 90 minutes, the game became very stretched. Aberdeen poured forward in search of an equaliser, hitting the woodwork twice, including a delightful looping header from substitute Josh Magennis which bounced down off the underside of the crossbar. It was not to be, however, and Hibs held on for all three points.

I struggled to comprehend Aberdeen’s shape during the match. Starting out with what seemed like a basic 4-4-2 formation, the Dons’ left wing was left remarkably exposed as all four midfielders drifted inside away from the flanks. This meant that, on the occasions when left-back Stevie Smith found himself in possession, he had nobody ahead of him to pass to. He was forced to pass sideways, or even backwards, nullifying any chance of a quick counter-attack. This happened time and again, and was only really fixed when manager Craig Brown switched Smith to right-back late for the last 20 minutes, switching Sone Aluko to the left wing in the process.

Aluko, in fairness, looked bright for most of the game, making a number of encouraging forays down the right side in the first half. There was no end product, though, and finding the final ball proved itself a huge problem when attacking.

There has been a great deal of discussion in Scotland over how to fix the problems of falling attendances. A number of proposals have been suggested, including lowering the number of teams in the top flight to 10, as if this would have some magical effect on attendance figures. It is clear to me that this would solve no problems whatsoever, and might in fact make things worse.

The standard of play is currently very low, and this is by far the biggest problem. On the evidence of last Saturday, both Aberdeen and Hibs would struggle in the English Championship, never mind competing with the teams in the Premier League. It is no wonder that both Celtic and Rangers, comfortably Scotland’s two best teams, have struggled so much in European competition in recent seasons.

Scottish football in general, as well as Aberdeen FC in particular, are both in a sorry state. It was sad to see Pittodrie so empty, a ground with so much history seemingly in decline. I hope that the Scottish FA can begin to fix the problems; I fear that it is already too late.

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