A returning nightmare

[BobbyBiscuit]

If anyone here remembers the 91-92 season, then you'll maybe remember the reaction en masse of the fans who wanted Smith out.. and instantly wanted Willie Miller in.  I remember being at Broomfield and losing 2-0 at the time, and a chant goes up of "Smith, Smith Get to Fuck".  It's rapidly followed by "There's only one Willie Miller".  And Miller was sitting in the Dons dugout at the time as he was a coach at the club.  I was just about a teenager at the time and the whole situation was alien to me. Calling for a managers head etc, but there was also a thrill again of singing for Willie Miller.  There seemed to be real passion but also hope.  Miller used his players really well and initially made some wonderful signings with Richardson and in particular, Duncan Shearer excelling.

 

And then after a while it just went south at a rapid rate of knots.  The free flowing, free scoring football machine just stopped.  Where there was once a team beautifully balanced in ages, skill and application stood a team lacking in skill and intelligence.  It was painful.  We got a victory at Fir Park in December that we thought would signal the rise of the Dons but it never happened.  Eventually fans started to sing that "Miller must go".  It was something I could never sing, he was my favourite player and when he was made manager I was so delighted.  But I knew it.  If something didn't change then we were down. 

 

And now we have Mark McGhee as manager and this is the exact reason I didn't want Dingus as manager over any other and there were plenty of others.  It's not working out for McGhee, and the seperation is going to be painful.  Whether he survives the summer or not, the knives are out from some and there's pretty much no way back from that.

[Reekie_Red]

Is McGhee on a 1year or a 2year contract? If it's 1year, I seriously doubt he'll still be a Pittodrie employee in June. I know I've said all along that ultimately it is the players on the park who produce the performance. But if McGhee can't motivate his staff over a two week period to beat a side like St Johnstone, then there's no real hope for him as Aberdeen manager.

 

I'm disappointed at how things have panned out so far, as McGhee was and still is a real legend at Aberdeen. But like Bobby says, it pains me to see such a prolific player become such a woeful manager and be booed by sections of the Red Army. What pains me even more is, when Willie was misfiring, when Alex Miller was misfiring, when Ebbe was misfiring ... there always seemed to be a little glimmer of hope. Now, though, the players are gash, the funds are not there, and the once-loyal support who used to stick by the Dons through thick and thin are seemingly drifting in their thousands.

 

A sorry sorry sight to witness

[BobbyBiscuit]

. What pains me even more is, when Willie was misfiring, when Alex Miller was misfiring, when Ebbe was misfiring ... there always seemed to be a little glimmer of hope. Now, though, the players are gash, the funds are not there, and the once-loyal support who used to stick by the Dons through thick and thin are seemingly drifting in their thousands.

 

A sorry sorry sight to witness

 

A very good point Reekie.  No matter how fucking depressing it is.

[kelt]

I suppose it's not impossible for a club to be run so ineptly that it just ceases to be a force at all, and ends up grubbing around in some lower division.

 

Morton and Partick, while smaller than Aberdeen, always seemed to be bouncing back and forth into the top league and the next division down.  Now they're makeweights for the lower divisions.  Even Inverness, for a few years, were SPL regulars... now they've found their level.

 

Aberdeen just doesn't have any kind of leadership, the board are incapable of lifting the club out of the doldrums into which they themselves took the club.

 

We might just be witnessing the reduction of Aberdeen from a force into some kind of lower SPL makeweight.

 

Or maybe some miracle will occur where money is pumped into the club, rather than pissed away by the board.  Unlikely though.

 

Does anyone really care all that much?

 

I really don't.  Might be a distance thing or a result of seeing Aberdeen fail and fail and fail again for as long as I can remember.

 

Anyway.. meh can't bring myself to care very much as to AFCs fate.

[jmo]

It really looks like it isn't working for McGhee, I never really like jumping on 'Get the Manager to fuck' bandwagon but I can't see how the team will get anything but worse under McGhee.

 

If we win the rest of the games of the season then I will change my mind, but watching the game this evening I can't see how Aberdeen will win 1 game this season, never mind all of our remaining fixtures.

 

Could be easier for me to pass judgement though as I am too young to remember McGhee playing football.

[Guest rocket debris]

Your apathy from afar is expressed locally by thousands who no longer attend Pittodrie.

 

For those of us that do, the decision is now whether to "witness" the further decline or to actively seek a solution that sees this club compete at a level that the wage bill and turnover would reasonably expect us too.

 

This is all that we now are, spectators of a long, slow, horrible decline with a decision to make.

[BigRed]

 

This is a dangerous situation....some good posts there.

 

Unlike the situation with Pele, there's been no real focal point of the anger (yet)...no walk-outs, no demonstrations in Pittodrie Street......people have just drifted away and stopped going to the games.

 

There's been no comment from Milne and virtually none from Miller, and all we have is McGhee floundering around daily in the press making a clown of himself.

 

It's like all of this isn't actually happening...it's like all of this (if you believe some of the happy clappers on AFC Chat) is a natural part of a grand plan which is all going to come to fruition next season when the 'transition' is over.

 

You know, next season. When we get rid off Kerr, Mulgrew, Paterson, McLean, McDonald, Aluko and Langfield and replace them with.........well, who ?

In the mind of some, 'better' players. But in reality they'll be replaced by non-descript journeymen and inexperienced loan players.

 

And our club will face the very, very real danger of relegation for the first time in our history.

 

 

As I said, dangerous times. We're sleep-walking towards the abyss.

 

 

 

[Reekie_Red]

You know the worst thing? None of the fans actually look like they care enough to protest against the current circumstances. Previously, even small pockets of fans could be found outside the Main Stand, waiting to boo Milne, but grab Darren Mackie's autograph on the way.

 

Now, though, I see absolutely no anger within the fans, nobody willing to stand up and say "enough! stop ripping the heart and soul out of our club". To me, it seems the fans, just like everyone else, aren't really that fussed if the club disappears.

 

Could we be entering the final chapter in the history of Aberdeen Football Club?