By Alfie Watson-Brown
A quick check on Google Maps will tell you that it takes 16 minutes to walk from Morrison’s King Street, the place my dad chose to park for Aberdeen games, to Pittodrie. Doesn’t seem long, does it? Then again, Google will also tell you that Aberdeen’s matches only last 90 minutes. Tough to argue with the facts, but tough to believe them, too.
Between 2007 and 2011, I was lucky enough to be an Aberdeen FC season ticket holder. My dad, a lifelong fan, my sister, three years older than me, and myself, an 8-year-old who initially insisted he liked Rangers better (we all have flaws), showed up on the opening day of the 2007/08 season bright-eyed and optimistic. My dad seemed to hedge his bets on my sister sticking around longest, but when the colder weather hit, and she chose Zac Efron over Zander Diamond, there I was, by my dad’s side, with a hand-me-down pink and red Dons scarf.
When we got out of the car at Morrison’s, it was often easy to be pessimistic. The walk to Pittodrie was littered with grey buildings bordering on brutalist. A case can be made for some clubs mirroring their cities, which is fine when you’re a Milan supporter (pre-2012 of course), watching your club play silky, arrogant, often beautiful football in one of the most luxurious European cities around. However, watching Aberdeen Football Club drubbing out a footballing homage to ‘The Granite f*cking City’ once a fortnight can become somewhat depressing.
But each matchday, the 16-minute walk offered us a period for imagination, for hope. Today would be better, today would be different. Today, the players would channel the power of their predecessors, and somehow metamorphosise into a team Alex Ferguson himself would be proud of. Sixteen minutes is enough time to invest heavily in those thoughts, but, it was often made immediately futile, the glass smashed within minutes of the players stepping out.
Football fans tend to be oxymoronic with their treatment of children. Preferential treatment going up the steps, queue jumps in the toilets and pats on the head, all presented with the caveat of hearing language that’s better suited to South Park than Celtic Park. The cacophonic atmosphere should be too much for kids – but at that age, ‘bad behaviour’ tends to wash over you fairly easily, and it would be foolish to assume that the most offensive thing inside Pittodrie in that period was the language.
Despite back-to-back fourth-place finishes in our first two seasons as season-ticket holders, our exposure to entertainment was limited. Late 2000s Aberdeen had a shoddy home record, and the first home win of the 2007/08 season came at the fourth attempt, and in the form of a hard-fought 2-0 against THAT Gretna team.
The Dons boasted a fairly efficient side, but as most football fans know: efficient is just boring in a pink bow. Players found it hard to break us down, fans found it hard not to break down – but – there was a silver lining. A silver lining which was five feet, eight inches, and lived predominantly in the nightmares of any slow-turning Scottish Premiership right-back between 2007 and 2012: Sone Aluko.
On loan from Birmingham and with the perfect number of syllables to fit into all sorts of chants, Aluko was an instant fan favourite. A diamond in the rough, a rose amongst thorns, a player who could take more than two touches without sh*tting himself amongst – well, you know. Aluko provided much-needed width and trickery to a fairly dogged Dons unit and was the slice of unpredictability we sorely missed when he didn’t feature.
He notched his first Aberdeen goal against rivals Dundee United in November, bursting past the United backline and slotting home in clinical fashion. He was crucial in an out of character home run which saw the Dons go 8 home games unbeaten, but Aluko’s crowning moment of his debut season came on a stage larger than the Premiership could provide.
Logically, you could forgive my Dad for opting for the domestic-only season-ticket. Aberdeen were not the European juggernaut they were in the 80s, and nobody expected us to progress beyond any opponent who could string three passes together. But after progressing past Dnipro thanks to a valuable Darren Mackie away goal, and somehow navigating past a tricky group over Copenhagen and Lokomotiv Moscow, the Dons found their hard work rewarded with what seemed like a death sentence.
Nobody gave Calderwood’s men a chance against a Bayern Munich side littered with legends: Toni, Klose, Lucio, Podolski, Ribery, just a few names that contributed to the idea that this was a classic European mismatch. Bayern were favourites for the trophy, and everyone knew they were a Champions League-quality side. Couple the gulf in class with the fact that Aberdeen were on their worst run of the season, (four straight defeats, losing by an aggregate score of 12-2) and you’d doubt a giant-killing was on the cards.
Tickets sold out fast, as you’d expect, so we found ourselves taking a trip to the beautiful world of Setanta Sports (remember?). The relegation from Pittodrie could have been worse, but I still found myself surrounded by men 8 times my age. Grant, a main character in our Pittodrie visits, and a colleague of my Dad, hosted a small viewing party at his house, and I was honoured to be my Dad’s go-to plus one.
The general buzz was one of cheerful indignation, every fan knows the feeling: you fully expect to get thumped, but it’ll be funny. Grant always had a handful of those Fox’s glacier mints in his pocket, so my entertainment was sorted for the evening, even if I did lose interest in the football. But no number of hard-candies could tear my attention away from what followed.
Hamit Altintop went close early on, but the bodies in the Aberdeen box managed to squirm the ball away. Most of Bayern’s attacks were led by the Turkish winger in the early stages, with his fierce drive forward creating the space for Christian Lell to hit one – but Langfield was alert, and sprung to his right. As expected, Bayern were on top in the early stages, but, after a concession of corners, a Dons free-kick on the halfway line gave them a chance to get bodies up the park.
A searching long-ball found Darren Mackie, then Zander Diamond, and the ball eventually fell to Sone Aluko. Aluko swivelled, trying to make space for the shot, but looked up to see Josh Walker standing on the edge of the box. Or was it David Beckham? I can’t remember. Either Walker or Beckham curled the ball into Michael Rensing’s bottom corner with all the craft of a hipster’s basement, and the Pittodrie faithful, relocated to their second home (Grant’s living-room) erupted. A curious concoction of laughter and bellows, nobody could quite believe what they had just seen.
This would prove to be Josh Walker’s only goal of his Dons career, and what a goal it was. But, while I’m sure Walker would disagree, there are plenty of players who can hit a one-time wonder strike when they’ve no time to think about it: sometimes the adrenaline alone carves a path for the ball. But the composure to take four touches in the German Champions elect’s box before teeing up a teammate in a better position? Only one man in that Aberdeen team could possibly be up to that task. But there was still a game going on.
At the other end, Toni hustled and harried Diamond, fed the ball to Altintop, who supplied Klose – but the German fired over from eight yards. A few minutes later, Toni flicked on to Klose, and this time he didn’t miss. 1-1.
In the minutes that followed, Klose should’ve had a second but for some Jamie Langfield heroics, and Ze Roberto lashed the ball against the side netting. But in pushing for a go-ahead goal a sense of complacency crept into Bayern’s play. They were caught napping. Langfield smashed the ball long, and a series of headers led to a Darren Mackie flick-on which put Aluko through on goal, twenty yards out. The ball bounced all over the shop on the scratchy Pittodrie turf, and with Lell approaching hurriedly and Aluko under serious pressure, the Nigerian snatched at it, firing the ball into the crowd.
Only joking, Aluko would never do something like that.
Instead, he dinked the ball over the oncoming Lell’s head, controlled it with his chest, then volleyed the ball past Rensing. The kisses Aluko blew into the crowd were fired right back at him. I remember thinking then, and I still think now: how did a player this good, at only 18 years of age, stay so under the radar?
The truth is, Aluko has gone on to be something of an underachiever. He played with England from Under-16s through to Under-19s, before opting for Nigeria, making only 7 senior international appearances to date. A good season for Rangers after his time with the Dons earned him a move to Hull City, although plenty would see this as more of a step-down than a step-up. Injuries spoiled the party after his promising first season at the Tigers before he moved on to have solid if underwhelming spells with Fulham and Reading.
He’s still contracted to Reading, and will soon return from a loan spell with Beijing Renhe. All in all, assuming Sone doesn’t decide to find his best form in his mid-30s, he remains a case of a player who was unplayable on his day, but who’s day didn’t come often enough, as well as one who sits firmly in the shadow of his sister Eniola, who has amassed over a century of England caps.
One wonders if the Bayern Munich performance remains Aluko’s peak. He himself claimed it was his ‘destiny’ to score that night, and he may be right, even if that proved to be the height of his destiny. In that room, at that time, I was convinced Sone Aluko was the best player on that pitch. Not long after his goal, Aluko chested the ball past the Bayern defenders again, and his resulting half-volley flew inches wide of the post. As half-time loomed, Aberdeen, surprisingly enough, were in the driver’s seat.
There was a real buzz around Grant’s living room, and there was time for a collective catch of the breath, and a quick glacier mint. Calmness settled in briefly, but it wasn’t to last long.
Bayern came out firing, and a harsh handball call meant Altintop had the chance to draw level from the spot. He deserved a goal, but as he loomed over the ball, he didn’t look all that confident. Nobody in the room dared to speak, at risk of spitting out the hearts sitting firmly on the bases of their mouths. Altintop strode towards the ball, then… Langfield saved! And what a save, parrying the ball out, straight… straight into the path of Altintop. 2-2.
Aberdeen battled, backs against the wall, for most of the remaining minutes, and the tie was set-up nicely for the reverse fixture. In that space between the two matches, hope reigned supreme. Hope for another battling performance, hope for another Aluko masterclass, hope for another famous European Dons performance. On that cusp, in that gap, there was promise.
Much of a football fan’s life is spent in waiting, and in hope, waiting for a stellar performance that never comes. The on-field action comes in 90-minute bursts, but so much of the joy of football comes outside of that time. As a bright-eyed nine-year-old, I hadn’t seen too much pain in football yet, so I wasn’t to know. Not to know that Aberdeen would get thumped 5-1 at the Allianz, or that Sone Aluko would fail to achieve what I once thought he could. But that didn’t matter. I filled in the gaps with content which was way more satisfying than reality, and for a couple of weeks, there was nothing to contest that content. It was bliss.
A quick check on Google Maps will tell you that it takes 16 minutes to walk from Morrison’s King Street, the place my dad chose to park for Aberdeen games, to Pittodrie. Doesn’t seem long, does it? Then again, Google will also tell you that Aberdeen’s matches only last 90 minutes. Tough to argue with the facts, but tough to believe them, too.
