History of Aberdeen F.C.

Aberdeen Football Club are one of Scotland's most successful football teams, with 17 major domestic trophy wins: four League titles with 17 runners-up finishes, seven Scottish Cups with nine final defeats (as of March 2020). They are the only Scottish team to have won two European trophies – the European Cup Winners' Cup against Real Madrid on 11 May 1983 and the European Super Cup against the European Cup holders Hamburger SV in December 1983.

Aberdeen also have the distinction of never having been relegated: other than two seasons during World War I when they dropped out of competitive football for logistical reasons and were subsequently re-admitted, they have spent every year since 1905 as members of the top division, a record bettered only by Celtic.

Origins of the club

The Aberdeen FC was born out of the merger of three city clubs; Aberdeen, Victoria United and Orion. A public meeting on 20 March 1903 was attended by more than 1,600 citizens, and on that date the amalgamation issue was discussed and given the go-ahead. On the merger was made official and ''Aberdeen Football Club'' was born.

The merger allowed Aberdeen (wearing an all-white kit) to seriously entertain thoughts of joining the Scottish Football League, but had to settle with spending its inaugural season in the Northern League having narrowly failed to gain admission to the First Division.

Early years (1903–1917)

The new club played its first match on 15 August 1903, a 1–1 draw with Stenhousemuir - the goalscorer was William McAulay. That first season produced a win in the Aberdeenshire Cup, but only a third-place finish in the Northern League. Undaunted, the club applied for membership of the Scottish League for the following season, and were duly elected, although to the Second Division, rather than the First which the directors had aspired to.

With the arrival of League football in 1904–05, Aberdeen changed kit colours to black and gold, resulting in the new nickname of the ''Wasps''. The club at this time was managed by Jimmy Philip, and he steered the club to a Scottish Qualifying Cup win on 26 November 1904, a 2–0 victory over Renton at Dens Park. At the end of that first season, despite having finished seventh out of 12 teams, Aberdeen were elected to the new, expanded First Division, and have been in the top tier of Scottish football ever since, a record shared with only Celtic.

Once in the First Division, however, the club's progress was steady rather than spectacular – a Scottish Cup and another in 1911 being the highlights of the pre-war period. In that season of 1910–11, Aberdeen recorded their first victories over the Old Firm, and led the league for a time, but the silverware ended up in Glasgow as was becoming customary.

Wartime affected the club as much as any other, and in spite of spending cuts and other economies, by 1917 the situation was untenable and, along with Dundee and Raith Rovers, Aberdeen dropped out of competitive football for two seasons.

Between the wars (1919–1939)

Senior football returned to the north-east of Scotland on 16 August 1919, The ''Dons'' (as they had been known since 1913) resuming with a fixture against Albion Rovers. Philip was still in charge, and continued to oversee a team capable of isolated good results, but never quite able to sustain a challenge long enough to win a trophy.

In 1923, Aberdeen were drawn against Peterhead in the Scottish Cup, and posted their record score – a 13–0 victory. The game took place in torrential rain, and it is recorded that the Aberdeen goalkeeper, Harry Blackwell, played in a waterproof coat, and spent at least part of the game sheltered under a spectator's umbrella.

One of the Wembley Wizards, Scottish international Alex Jackson, played for Aberdeen from 1924 to 1925.

Philip retired in 1924, and was replaced as manager by Paddy Travers. Travers's Aberdeen sides were no more successful than his predecessors', but he did preside over the team's first Scottish Cup final in 1937, as well as two close-season tours to South Africa, the second of which, soon after the Cup final defeat, ended in tragedy when outside-right Jackie Benyon died of peritonitis.

In November 1931, Travers unexpectedly dropped a number of first team regulars, none of whom played for the club again. It wasn't until the publication of the club's official history in the 1970s that it became clear that there had been a suspicion of a betting scandal; no action was taken against any player at the time.

Donald Colman and the 'dug-out'

Travers' trainer (first team coach in modern parlance) was a former player and fans' favourite, Donald Colman. Colman was regarded as a brilliant and innovative thinker about football, and one of his inventions remains a standard part of many football grounds to this day. Colman believed in studying players' feet as they played, and conceived the 'dug-out', a covered area set slightly below the level of the playing surface to better aid his observations. Everton visited Pittodrie soon after its introduction, and exported the idea to the English leagues, from where it spread throughout the football-playing world.

Travers left to become manager of Clyde in 1939, and was replaced by Dave Halliday. Halliday went to his ex club Queen of the South to sign inside forward George Hamilton. This would be as shrewd a signing as Halliday would ever make. However Halliday had barely begun his work when the Second World War halted competitive football in the United Kingdom.

Wartime (1939–1945)

The Second World War effectively shut down senior football, but Aberdeen continued to put on games featuring any players who might be in the forces and stationed nearby. Players such as Stan Mortensen and Ted Ditchburn played for Aberdeen sides in the North-Eastern League and the North-Eastern League Cup although for the last season ( 1945–46) the Southern League and Southern League Cup were effectively national competitions and Aberdeen competed in those. Unlike in the previous hiatus, the club were kept running, albeit on a highly improvised basis.

Post-war glory (1946–1970)

Halliday inspired Aberdeen (now playing in red shirts) to their first senior silverware in 1946, winning the Scottish League Cup (although this was a reduced wartime version of the competition known officially as the Southern League Cup), and taking his team back to Hampden the following season in the same competition, although they were defeated on this occasion. Aberdeen also reached the Scottish Cup