From a personal viewpoint it was a full three years of attending away games at Pittodrie and when we did experience a win the Celtic fans stayed for half an hour after the game in praise of their Parkhead idols as this victory was seen as being ‘some result’.

 

However times change and in April 1996 Celtic thrashed Aberdeen 5-0 at Parkhead. This wasn’t an isolated result and heavy hidings were given out thereafter to the Pittodrie outfit from a new Celtic breed of foreign imports – Cadete, Van Hooydonk, Viduka and Larsson all putting the Dons to the sword and filling their boots with goals. It was ironic that the great Henrik visited at the weekend as Aberdeen was the team he scored most goals against in the hoops.

As the Celtic big scores rained down on the Aberdeen reds no one was more overjoyed than me. Fours, fives, sixes and sevens, a plethora of goals flew past Aberdeen goalkeepers and, as far as I was concerned, there were never enough goals for me as I could recall the barren days quite easily.

Last Saturday saw Celtic inflict on Aberdeen their record defeat in their 107 year history. You may well think that I would have been in my glory and it’s true to say I was more than happy with Celtic’s performance and the result. Radio Clyde, correctly, concentrated on the Aberdeen perspective after the game after their humiliation and I found myself actually having a sense of pity for the Aberdeen club as a whole.

If Scottish football is to improve and become credible in the eyes of outsiders then we have to have a decent overall product. In order to do this there has to be a challenge from Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs and Dundee United. It’s true to say that these days with the Bosman rule and huge wages, Aberdeen could never dream of keeping Ferguson, Miller, Strachan and their ilk at their peak. These clubs can’t compete financially with the big Glasgow pair but they should be doing a damned sight better than where they currently are.

A club with Aberdeen’s resources in the Grampian area should be turning in better performances than last weekend and this current lot of Aberdeen players are cheating their fans. Their was something quite pathetic about their capitulation at Parkhead and whilst it was delightful for Celtic fans to watch nine goals fly in there is no way a professional outfit in this day in age should be losing by such a margin.

Let me close by saying that although I hope the standard of Scottish football improves in the coming years my even greater desire is that next time Celtic and Aberdeen meet that we go the whole road and hit them for 10 !