Tag Archive for: Glass

aberdeen-glass

October 17th 2021

I’m going to be a dick now about Glass and stuff I’ve seen on social media. In my defence I’ve largely been very quiet on everything for quite a while. Just let things unfold. Drawing Gothenburg Greats (my own quiet heroism), judging everyone and binge watching Family Guy.

So read this in Stewie’s voice…

All set? Here we fucking go!

Let us not forget the collective dandy madness that had supporters purring over the signing of a 30 year old journeyman from Livingston on a free, with a collective ‘just wait until the striking coach gets hold of this guy…’ like we’d just picked up Marco Van Basten from Milan in the 80s. How was he ever going to be anything other than the next Curtis Main.

There was that time on Twitter I said Brown probably wouldn’t be much cop as he was two years older than Jonny Hayes, and was told ‘I knew nothing about football’. 

Well you know nothing about how time works. Which I forgot to tweet back but meant to.

There was that one game early on where we played well (Hacken at home?) where during the game tweeting ‘Be careful what you wish for!! Sneering emoji, sneering emoji, sneering emoji’ was some supporters first reaction even before the final whistle. On the back of a fucking pandemic and the whole support having gone through an emotional shredder the previous 12 months.

*noisily clears throat*

You should have been careful what YOU wished for then shouldn’t you. Sneering emoji! Aubergine emoji, a rubber duck emoji. (still Stewie)

Clue-doh!

Let’s not forget the first really big clue. The Dundee United cup game last season where we were royally turned over by an exceptionally average Dundee United team even by Dundee United standards. Mister confident knows what he’s doing and speaks so well, that’s my manager (vomit). At his first significant (and expensive) defeat while under pressure in an interview for the first time, did the good manager thing of taking responsibility and saying ‘he was to blame’. And then immediately did the absolute fucking opposite by saying, ‘but the players had to understand that level of performance wasn’t acceptable’ (he hadn’t rotated the squad since a tough midweek game against Celtic, as he hadn’t reached that page in the management for dummies book yet). Thus blaming the players publicly, which would immediately damage team morale. Which was presumably on the next page of the fucking book on management he singularly hadn’t fucking read yet.

That day, was day one of, look how out of my fucking depth I am. 

Clunkety clunk

Let’s not forget the clunkety clunkety clunk of the back stories of how he and the back room team had always stayed in touch down the years (“mainly on the phone” as that’s important to explain in the backstory, particularly if someone was double checking geographic locations and timelines) to maintain the illusion of a natural group, the coming together of the A Team rather than a disparate group of individuals collected together with the aid of Google.

Let’s not forget if my maths and memory is correct three talented young players offered contracts elected to leave rather than stay at Aberdeen. One didn’t have a club to go to. There can be many reasons for this, one of which might be, Cormack Park is a pretty shit place to go to work if you are an ambitious young player. All eyes should be on the young players who’s contracts are up in the summer. Watch very carefully if it happens again. (Older players sign mainly for salary, 18-23 are looking to have their potential developed by someone they believe in).

Super Striker

Let’s not forget no one questioning the striking coach despite not a single EPL club in their right mind would ever consider giving Gareth Southgate a job if he became available, but some bloke who used to play for Hamilton with a company called Super Striker (Really!? the fuck were the company names that he rejected?!) was somehow the greatest thing since sliced bread, but with all that money available in the EPL, Aberdeen we’re able to snap him up under the noses of Chelsea, Man City and Burnley…

There was that time everyone decided racism wasn’t important because Aberdeen’s moral compass said ‘he was backing his teammate that’s what they do’ like that excused Celtics shameful behaviour that could finally be called to account. Destroying any integrity Aberdeen had just to sign someone who used to be Scott Brown. All Brown had to do was acknowledge mistakes were made. A part of the club died that day.

There was the time the chairman answered ‘no’ to the concept of fan ownership and everyone went, ‘ok then, that’s fine’. As apparently questioning millionaires isn’t allowed in the Dandy support. Oh look Pittodrie is destroyed. For Gods sake no one consider questioning how that happened. And with a builder in charge. What are the chances. Oh look we have to move. That’s my Chairman. (vomit) I hope he says ‘rowies’ again. (vomit)

Pulp Fiction

Let us not forget on social media an account saying ‘although we are losing, it just needs time’, and the superb technical analysis that went with explaining the awesome new tactical stuff of fullbacks in front of wingers and all sorts of incredible analysis that someone like me who ‘knows nothing about football’ wouldn’t be able to understand until later, but just wait. We’re still waiting and that technical analysis appears to have dried the fuck up. Tell us again how it was going to be brilliant later. Tell us again! Samuel L Jackson voice: tell us a motherfucking gain!

There was a game we lost (all of them?) but according to some on social media we won 75% 25% on possession so we needed to be patient because we ‘knew nothing about football’.

And finally the time early on when I said Glass reminded me of a character in an ITV police drama, the Scottish football manager character, just incredibly ‘on the nose’. I was trying to word it nicely but I think ‘fake’ was the word I wanted to use. Well I was watching an old episode of Touch of Frost with David Jason from 2001 and there he is. Generic cliched gruff hard as nails wiry Scottish football manager. Also considerably more convincing. The actor. The actor playing a football manager in Frost.

Anyway I’m out of here, I’m emotionally drained. Oh I called it right at the beginning https://thedandydons.com/breaking-glass-frankensteins-monster-and-the-romanov-era/ either because it was patently obvious, or I’m Stewie and I used his fucking time machine. And no, I’m not smug about it, and I’m not pleased I was right, and plenty others saw through it all too.

P.s. Wait a minute, ‘pants pisher’ what happened to that phrase that was being dished out to anyone questioning Glass? Don’t hear that one so much anymore. Interesting the same people dishing out the ‘pants pisher’ insults were dishing out ‘happy clapper’ as an insult for backing McInnes.

March 27 2021

Aberdeen FC are currently at a crossroads. The McInnes era has ended, and the Glass era is just beginning.

Now we as football supporters must patiently await what will happen, while giving complete backing to the management team, new players and the Chairman.

You’d think that wouldn’t you.

And then in a complete change from how the UK’s mainstream media normally works, a BBC employee uses a newspaper column to push forward the views of a multi-millionaire! Well f*ck me! https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/sport/football/aberdeen-fc/3007504/richard-gordon-column-despite-some-fans-strange-views-a-new-era-is-about-to-unfold-for-aberdeen/

the level of stupidity in a number of the replies was actually quite breath-taking, and I do despair at the thinking of some who call themselves supporters.

Richard Gordon

So the multimillionaire in his Bond villain lair in Atlanta or wherever, has his friend attacking supporters for not being complete believers via the press. The same guy who had an awful lot of information on all things Aberdeen FC on the radio a couple of weeks ago, in complete contrast to the club’s own communications department.

I have known the chairman for decades and I can guarantee them there is no chance he would appoint anyone under those circumstances

Richard Gordon

This is from a guy who stated on Radio Scotland fully two weeks ago, something along the lines of he didn’t know what would happen, no decision had been made (Glass) and then ended it with ‘but Stephen Glass will definitely be involved somewhere’ or words to that effect.

but it is also a huge decision Stephen has taken to give up a lifestyle and career in Atlanta to return to the north east. 

Richard Gordon

Fuck off, and when you are done fucking off, fuck off again. Managing Aberdeen Football Club ought to be the biggest thrill of his f*cking life. He will never manage a bigger club, I guarantee it. Are we supposed to be grateful he left the arse end of nowhere managing their second string to fourth bottom. Incidentally over the last few weeks while all this was going on, plenty media contact with Glass. There was no ‘no comment’, or ‘while flattered to be mentioned, just concentrating on my job with the New York f*cking Yankees’ or whatever they are called. Like you’d normally do if linked with a job while in another job.

He certainly wasted no time in bringing Scott Brown to Pittodrie,

Richard Gordon

Amazing, only took him 48 hours, incredible work. Was in the media for several weeks, but presumably they just guessed it. And coincidently their guess actually happened. What are the chances.

They really think we are f*cking idiots.

Now time to break some Glass

Glass is going to fail. Albeit it might fail in an entertaining way. Some exciting stuff will happen on the pitch. For a bit. Which we all very, very badly need. But that sugar rush isn’t going to sustain us for long.

So why will Glass fail? How many managers did Liverpool appoint before they finally got Klopp? Even with the money to shop in the highest end of the market, it’s really really difficult to find ‘the special one’. And it appears from watching Spurs, you can find ‘The Special One’ and he isn’t any more.

So someone who hasn’t done it at any real level before, almost certainly doesn’t have it. Particularly the man who took a US soccer team’s second string to fourth bottom. ‘Oh but he was developing talent’. That sounds very ‘Linkedin recommendation’ to me.

In addition looking at the other appointments in the coaching team and listening to Cormack, it’s clear that they are creating a Frankenstein’s monster. They are welding together elements that they know their actual manager doesn’t have, in an attempt to piece together a team that will have all the components they think they need, as if that will magically come together like alchemy.

Brown sugar

So clearly they have spotted a lack of a winning mentality in their new manager, so Frankensteining it buying in ‘winning mentality’ in Scott Brown (who turns 36 in the summer – 2 years older than Jonny Hayes).

Aberdeen to bring in striking coach

Then there’s the ‘Striking Coach’ that really gives the game away regarding frankensteining components together.

Sir Alex Ferguson did of course have a striking coach. His name was Sir Alex Ferguson. Managers manage. Again what is Glass doing? What is he bringing? His weaknesses are clear from the people being put together in the coaching team.

And it won’t work, just like co-managers are an idiotic idea, and because as I said countless times while writing about potential managerial appointments going back years, you can’t add elements together in a managerial team to create a great manager. Or Chelsea would have fifteen managers, Real Madrid 43. It just doesn’t work that way. A manager can bring in outside specialists for specific elements to aid them in their work, but if the manager doesn’t have it, isn’t the real deal, doesn’t have that magical combination of ingredients that it takes to be a successful manager, plus the experience to have tried it out, then it will fail.

And it is blindingly obvious it will fail.

Romanov at Hearts is probably a good example of what we are about to experience.

Someone with money (unlike Romanov, it’ll be his, it’ll be accumulated all perfectly morally properly – and well done you!), who is going to use that money as he is passionate about Aberdeen FC.

However ask a Hearts supporter, would they want Romanov back in charge, or do they want the current directors and be in the Championship? I don’t know the answer, (irrespective of their current mess -2022 update, they were in the Championship at the time) but I suspect it’s the current Hearts they prefer to support. Because it’s their club, run for them all collectively, and not some big ego making the club into a reflection of himself (or herself). And if you see what happened to Blackburn Rovers after Jack Walker passed away, after an unnatural unsustained cash injection (if it happens – getting the money in on Big Sam and McKenna doesn’t point to a huge cash injection coming – your season ticket will most certainly pay Scott Brown’s wages) it is not good for a football club.

I’ve no doubt this will upset some people. I don’t like to upset people, but I do care about Aberdeen Football Club, and I don’t like a lot I’ve been seeing going back several decades. Three stands named after nothing. Nothing for Chris Anderson. Willie Miller and Teddy Scott’s training pitches tone deaf at best. The virtual destruction of Pittodrie. That idiotic stand behind a goal. The removal of the corner areas. Two f*cking floodlights. A communication department built up over decades with a clear, consistent, understated tone of voice, wiped out at a stroke.

Just a f*cking mess while we wait for someone to find time on Zoom. Long after he has briefed countless journalists. Transparent. My arse.

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I should probably add Richard Gordon’s Glory of Gothenburg book is one of my favourite books.

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Update 26 Sept 2021:


Why did I write this, why not ‘gie the boy a chance’?

  1. I hate it when anyone comes with the ‘who calls themselves supporters’ line, or any of the variations of ’so called supporter’ (Ironically I hadn’t been complaining) So when the line comes from a paid journalist, who is a friend of the Chairman, with a huge platform…
  2. I’ve been around a while. If I were to be on Mastermind my specialised subject would be ‘Aberdeen’s managers post Alex Ferguson and the stupidity of most of those appointments’. Two of them I called at the time of their appointments, and said would be abject failures. (Alex Miller and Craig Brown – I’m not psychic or particularly smart, if you had watched any of their careers pre-Aberdeen in any detail it was very obvious) Here was number three. No doubt whatsoever. As an Aberdeen supporter I ALWAYS want my team to win. It makes me furious that such fuckwittery could happen within our club, repeatedly. We watched Milne f*ck up time after time, finally he gets one right, then the next Chairman wants to play at running a football club. So everything that has gone before is thrown away, and now we’ve to wait years for Cormack to get one right. 
  3. Lockdown. I wasn’t in a good mood. 
Leighton Snelders

Jim Leighton versus Theo Snelders, who was best?