Michael Grant: JC and the Sunshine Banned

[BobbyBiscuit]

JC and the sunshine banned

By Michael Grant

ON THE SPOT

SOME RECKON the relationship between Aberdeen and Jimmy Calderwood is like a soap opera. Actually it is far more predictable than that. The plot never really changes around Pittodrie and this beleaguered manager. It's the same storyline on a loop. Aberdeen grind along delivering solid but unremarkable league results and then twice a season the whole club gets its trousers pulled down in the cups.

 

So here we are again, out of another tournament, Calderwood getting dog's abuse from all angles and the board grimly standing by their man. Once again they will close ranks, cross their fingers and pray that league results pick up until the storm passes. That's what tends to happen. If Calderwood is true to form they will rally a little, secure one of the Europa League spots, maybe pull off a result against Celtic or Rangers. The current clamour for him to be sacked will die down. This is the football equivalent of subsistence farming. It is about doing enough - just - to survive all the serial cup humiliations which make the club a laughing stock.

 

The Aberdeen Supporters' Society last week sent a letter to Willie Miller which all but called for Calderwood's head to be stuck on a spike outside The Pittodrie Bar. Clubs would have you believe that these sort of gestures are the acts of irrational hotheads, but that doesn't wash. Something similar happened at Inverness in January, Craig Brewster was gone within days, and Caley Thistle's results have been the better for it. There is a difference between being bottom of the league and being in the hunt for a European place, though. Aberdeen now need to salvage something from their season and creating further upheaval would make no sense. It's in the summer that the decision has to be made.

 

There isn't a single thing the Aberdeen directors can say to appease or change the minds of those supporters who want the manager out. Stability, improved league status, a general sense of restoration, European football: all have been achieved under Calderwood and all of that has been duly recognised. He landed the job when one of the biggest clubs in Scotland was on its knees and the room for improvement was enormous. But what now? When things are on an even keel it isn't much of an achievement to keep Aberdeen in the top six and challenging for a European place, not when there was £150,000 handed over to buy Charlie Mulgrew, £75,000 for Tommy Wright and £50,000 for Sone Aluko.

 

Aberdeen haven't been close to winning anything for years. Hibs, Hearts, Motherwell, Dunfermline (twice), Dundee United (twice), Kilmarnock, Gretna and Queen of the South have all appeared in cup finals since Calderwood came to Aberdeen. Whenever his teams get close they turn to jelly. Last season only a First Division side stood between them and the final, and they blew it.

 

This season they could have made it to the final without facing a single team in the top 10 of the SPL, and they blew it again. For the last three seasons their every cup exit has been dismal: Queen's Park, Hibs (by 4-1), Dundee United (4-1 again), Queen of the South (4-3), Kilmarnock (4-2) and now Dunfermline. Calderwood has said he won't feel fulfilled at Aberdeen until he has delivered a trophy for the club. It isn't going to happen.

 

Managers get sacked for league results, not cup ones (John Barnes and Celtic excepted). But in remaining loyal to Calderwood the Aberdeen directors are going against the will of a huge section of the support they will soon be asking to shell out for new season tickets. When the team was bottom of the league in October Calderwood saved his skin by inspiring a run which hauled them up the table, but there have been only two wins in the last 11 games and losing to Dunfermline underlined all sorts of concerns about Aberdeen's motivation, character, substance and tactics. In the stands a vast number are sick and tired of it. Average attendances have declined in each of the last three seasons at Pittodrie and there will be another decrease at the end of this one.

 

Aberdeen face three decisions in the summer. Will they bite the bullet and sack Calderwood? Can they afford to pay him off? And can they identify someone who could be tempted to come and do a better job? If their track record is anything to go by this conservative, cautious club will grimly soldier on with him. Calderwood is only a year into a three-year contract and chairman Stewart Milne isn't likely to be mistaken for Roman Abramovich when it comes to gratuitous spending.

 

And so the supporters will feel resentful and disenfranchised and Calderwood will be embedded and unloved. He would be off in a flash if a decent club came in for him. As soon as things go well he talks of moving on and of having taken Aberdeen as far as he can, and he is linked with alternative job offers which never come to anything. And then another bleak cup result comes along to give him a gigantic kick up the backside.

 

It's the same storyline on a loop. Aberdeen and Calderwood, locked together in a joyless marriage.

[OneZero]

[manc_don]

Couldn't have put it any better myself and saddens me to think that we know the club will react in this manner. As I mentioned in another post the club don't know what the club is about anymore, they are turning fans away from the club by carrying out their apparent lack of care for a club that is loved by the most important people to them, the fans.

[BobbyBiscuit]

There is a real sense of exasperation in the article from Grant, and unfortunately an air of resignation that nothing will change.  Saddens me to say it, but it's exactly how I feel just now.

[OneZero]

Couldn't have put it any better myself and saddens me to think that we know the club will react in this manner. As I mentioned in another post the club don't know what the club is about anymore, they are turning fans away from the club by carrying out their apparent lack of care for a club that is loved by the most important people to them, the fans.

 

They probably believe that, if they keep their heads down and say very little, the storm will pass overhead.

 

I can only speak for myself but, the less said - in particular from JC saying nothing other than "it's just my turn", "these things happen in football", "if it can happen to Walter Smith and Gordon Strachan what chance have I got" - the angrier I get with it.

 

He is ripping the piss out of those rightly disgruntled fans every time he garbles out this pish 

 

It's not just your turn Jimmy, this is a situation of your own making. Shit or get off the pot - prefferably the latter.

[manc_don]

They probably believe that, if they keep their heads down and say very little, the storm will pass overhead.

 

I can only speak for myself but, the less said - in particular from JC saying nothing other than "it's just my turn", "these things happen in football", "if it can happen to Walter Smith and Gordon Strachan what chance have I got" - the angrier I get with it.

 

He is ripping the piss out of those rightly disgruntled fans every time he garbles out this pish 

 

It's not just your turn Jimmy, this is a situation of your own making. Shit or get off the pot - prefferably the latter.

 

I think this pretty much sums it up for me. What annoys me the most is the audacity that he possesses to even mention himsef in the same light as Walter Hun Smith and Gordon ginger man Strachan. These two are winners, that win things. We are a club that expect to be at least challenging for trophies (cups not the league) and it just feels that he has a distinct lack of respect for us, the fans of Aberdeen Football Club with his ramblings in the press. I am resigned to the fact that he will not be going anywhere any time soon, but alas I shall not be returning to pittodrie until he leaves (we'll see if I actually stick to that). But I feel by actually going along to Pittodrie, that it acts as a sign that I am willing to forgive him for his actions. I don't know if this makes a little if any sense, but its just how disillusioned I currently feel. Im sick of this merry go round, and whilst I want us to qualify for the Europa league, I can't just help but think that much like last time, it will just paper of the huge cracks within our club.

[tlg1903]

Thats an excellent article, definetely captures the mood.  The club will try to soldier on but if we go on a stinking run from now till the end of the season i could see the board sluggishly waking up enough to give him his jotters.

[Ajja]

Very well put and sums up how most of us are feeling I suspect. My personal favourite was this line:

 

Aberdeen grind along delivering solid but unremarkable league results and then twice a season the whole club gets its trousers pulled down in the cups.

[capitalsharpie]

To be honest, this league campaign has been completely uninspiring.  We had a dreadful opening to the season, pulled it together up until New Year, but apart from the win against celtic, we seem to be slipping into another poor run of form.

 

If we are to be taken seriously as a competing club we can not afford this. I think we will be lucky to still be in the top six come the split, as our brand of football is so, so poor and even if we end up either fifth or sixth, to throw the Club's comments back into thier teeth, this is a step backwards.  we have not maintained stability and we certaintly have not improved our cup form.

 

Will the board begin to panic if season ticket sales are less next season?  Couold this may be the deciding factor?

[OneZero]

To be honest, this league campaign has been completely uninspiring.  We had a dreadful opening to the season, pulled it together up until New Year, but apart from the win against celtic, we seem to be slipping into another poor run of form.

 

If we are to be taken seriously as a competing club we can not afford this. I think we will be lucky to still be in the top six come the split, as our brand of football is so, so poor and even if we end up either fifth or sixth, to throw the Club's comments back into thier teeth, this is a step backwards.  we have not maintained stability and we certaintly have not improved our cup form.

 

Will the board begin to panic if season ticket sales are less next season?  Couold this may be the deciding factor?

 

One possibility is that, now it has sunk through Calderwoods arrogant skull-if indeed it has-the strength of feeling against him, and some of the players may realise how badly they have let the fans down, we may see a bit of a transformation till the end of the season??

 

Ultimately I feel this will only paper over some extremely large cracks.

 

Lets hope [glow=red,2,300]our[/glow] club isn't too much of an embarrassment before Willie decides enough is enough.