I'm breaking forum etiquette here, but semi-final chat should not be hidden away in a generic League Cup thread.

Last time we were at Hampden we won the cup against Celtic, so let's not fear this mob.

The last time Stephen Robinson faced Derek McInnes in a semi-final at Hampden he skelped him 3-0 (Motherwell against... doesn't matter who it was against, but the team he beat were wearing blue shirts).

The last two times Robinson has been at Hampden - and in this competition - he won 4-1 (semi) and 3-1 (final).

So aye, we're winning this. Final against Hibs (I'm calling it now, think they'll beat Hearts) on the sacred day that we celebrate Eoin Jess' birthday (and Kristers Tobers).

Dates and kick-off time are either Saturday 31st (17:15 or 17:30 kick-off usually is the slot) or Sunday 1st November (14:00 or 15:00).

12 minutes ago, wee toon red said:

So this might be controversial but if a team can only sell 13,000 tickets for a semi but over 20,000 for a final, doesn't that backup every accusation of glory-hunting that gets made?

For the record, all games at neutral venues should start with a 50/50 allocation with scope to shift the boundaries as sales do or do not progress. I'm not saying they shouldn't, just pointing out that 13,000 is a pretty shit effort for a semi I think.

Who the fuck calls Aberdeen fans glory hunters!?!?!?!?!?!?

14 minutes ago, tlg1903 said:

Who the fuck calls Aberdeen fans glory hunters!?!?!?!?!?!?

Maybe "big game hunters" would be fairer but it's thrown out at us every time our semi support is poor compared to demand for final tickets.

You don't have a chance of winning a cup in a semi final. Finals bring expat fans from all over the place, which means more tickets are sold. Also, people maybe can't afford to attend both the semi and the final.

2 hours ago, wee toon red said:

just pointing out that 13,000 is a pretty shit effort for a semi I think.

I'm argue 13,000 is an outstanding effort for a semi-final, and that's before you consider the distance to travel, the lack of public transport options, the price of travel with high ticket prices lumped on top, unfavourable kick-off times, and the general poor experience of going to a game at Hampden.

You can't compare us to Hearts and Hibs because distance, public transport and price of travel doesn't affect them. We'd sell 20,000 regularly too if we only had a short hop to Dundee for a semi.

And even then, both have had their fair share of poor semi-final crowds. They've struggled to sell 10,000 tickets for semi-finals played in their own city before.

3 minutes ago, Panda said:

the general poor experience of going to a game at Hampden.

Going to Hampden in the Prod end is the best day out you can have in Scotland. Going to Hampden in the Catholic end is one of the worst

That more than anything is why we should ask to flip for it

1 hour ago, Panda said:

I'm argue 13,000 is an outstanding effort for a semi-final, and that's before you consider the distance to travel, the lack of public transport options, the price of travel with high ticket prices lumped on top, unfavourable kick-off times, and the general poor experience of going to a game at Hampden.

You can't compare us to Hearts and Hibs because distance, public transport and price of travel doesn't affect them. We'd sell 20,000 regularly too if we only had a short hop to Dundee for a semi.

And even then, both have had their fair share of poor semi-final crowds. They've struggled to sell 10,000 tickets for semi-finals played in their own city before.

Justify it all you want but you’re not convincing me. An easy cruise down a dual carriageway and onto a motorway isn’t a tough journey, Robbo. For a club and support that likes to boast about our numbers and commitment (and, generally, it is remarkable given how crap the team mostly is), we seem to let ourselves down when it comes to semis.

If we were playing the Huns at Pittodrie at 8pm on a Wednesday we’d had over 18000 reds there, so a third of them at least choose not to go to Glasgow on a Saturday for a bigger game. I just think that’s poor.

3 hours ago, swaddon said:

You don't have a chance of winning a cup in a semi final. Finals bring expat fans from all over the place, which means more tickets are sold. Also, people maybe can't afford to attend both the semi and the final.

Glory hunting then?

Nothing about the game is 'neutral' though is it?

FWIW wholeheartedly agree we should complain about ends, KO time and general SFA cuntishness but the ends issue comes from 'traditions' that are cemented in segregated state run education

Perhaps if Religious Instruction to place in the synagogues, temples, churches and mosques with Religious Education in schools things might be more sanitary?

Might see less stop the boats flags carried by wee black clad fannies if they were better world educated too?

2 hours ago, Panda said:

We'd sell 20,000 regularly too if we only had a short hop to Dundee for a semi.

I don't think I would be capable of getting a semi in that midden 😉

*no offence meant to any Dundonian Dons

1 hour ago, wee toon red said:

Justify it all you want but you’re not convincing me.

That's fine, doesn't mean I'm wrong.

1 hour ago, wee toon red said:

An easy cruise down a dual carriageway and onto a motorway isn’t a tough journey, Robbo. For a club and support that likes to boast about our numbers and commitment (and, generally, it is remarkable given how crap the team mostly is), we seem to let ourselves down when it comes to semis.

No-one said it was tough. It's the cost and fan experience.

Take the last semi-final with Hearts.

There were 19 trains that got you from Edinburgh to Glasgow in time for the lunchtime kick-off. From your front door to Hampden you could be there in under 90 minutes. Cost £16 for the train. Even quicker and cheaper by car. So if you're choosing game or pub, you may as well choose game.

Group of my mates from Aberdeen weighed it up. Driving was minimum five hour round trip, prob longer if stuck in traffic. Train was £66 and tickets were another £30+, and only two made kick-off. Buses were booked up weeks before the game.

My mates had two choices: get up at 6-7am, spend near £100 each (or one takes the hit and drives), basically use up the whole day for it. Or, meet in the pub at 11:30, get beers, get food, watch the game with fellow Dons fans, be home by 3pm having spent considerably fewer £s and had a better overall experience.

The whole "nah they should be there, loyalty 'n that" is just taking them for granted and expecting folk to turn up no matter what.

I make all the semis only because I live in Glasgow. I would probably skip a few of I still lived up there. We've gone from having a full bus come down from Aberdeen for the Hibs semi in 2017 to three of us at the Hearts semi in 2025. It's not a one-off occasion anymore.

1 hour ago, wee toon red said:

If we were playing the Huns at Pittodrie at 8pm on a Wednesday we’d had over 18000 reds there, so a third of them at least choose not to go to Glasgow on a Saturday for a bigger game. I just think that’s poor.

And what's the reason for that? That they're all glory hunters?

2 hours ago, Panda said:

That's fine, doesn't mean I'm wrong.

No-one said it was tough. It's the cost and fan experience.

Take the last semi-final with Hearts.

There were 19 trains that got you from Edinburgh to Glasgow in time for the lunchtime kick-off. From your front door to Hampden you could be there in under 90 minutes. Cost £16 for the train. Even quicker and cheaper by car. So if you're choosing game or pub, you may as well choose game.

Group of my mates from Aberdeen weighed it up. Driving was minimum five hour round trip, prob longer if stuck in traffic. Train was £66 and tickets were another £30+, and only two made kick-off. Buses were booked up weeks before the game.

My mates had two choices: get up at 6-7am, spend near £100 each (or one takes the hit and drives), basically use up the whole day for it. Or, meet in the pub at 11:30, get beers, get food, watch the game with fellow Dons fans, be home by 3pm having spent considerably fewer £s and had a better overall experience.

The whole "nah they should be there, loyalty 'n that" is just taking them for granted and expecting folk to turn up no matter what.

I make all the semis only because I live in Glasgow. I would probably skip a few of I still lived up there. We've gone from having a full bus come down from Aberdeen for the Hibs semi in 2017 to three of us at the Hearts semi in 2025. It's not a one-off occasion anymore.

And what's the reason for that? That they're all glory hunters?

The bus run by the club costs £28...last week for the Killie game and for the Hibs game it was £24. Why are they charging extra for the semi-final?

1 hour ago, dons8321 said:

The bus run by the club costs £28...last week for the Killie game and for the Hibs game it was £24. Why are they charging extra for the semi-final?

Possibly the bus company charging extra due to demand. We got some quotes for a bus as soon as we made the semi, and cheapest we got quoted was £33 each for a 53 seater.

13 hours ago, dons8321 said:

The bus run by the club costs £28...last week for the Killie game and for the Hibs game it was £24. Why are they charging extra for the semi-final?

Diesel has gone up £4,000 in the interim period

17 hours ago, Panda said:

That's fine, doesn't mean I'm wrong.

No-one said it was tough. It's the cost and fan experience.

Take the last semi-final with Hearts.

There were 19 trains that got you from Edinburgh to Glasgow in time for the lunchtime kick-off. From your front door to Hampden you could be there in under 90 minutes. Cost £16 for the train. Even quicker and cheaper by car. So if you're choosing game or pub, you may as well choose game.

Group of my mates from Aberdeen weighed it up. Driving was minimum five hour round trip, prob longer if stuck in traffic. Train was £66 and tickets were another £30+, and only two made kick-off. Buses were booked up weeks before the game.

My mates had two choices: get up at 6-7am, spend near £100 each (or one takes the hit and drives), basically use up the whole day for it. Or, meet in the pub at 11:30, get beers, get food, watch the game with fellow Dons fans, be home by 3pm having spent considerably fewer £s and had a better overall experience.

The whole "nah they should be there, loyalty 'n that" is just taking them for granted and expecting folk to turn up no matter what.

I make all the semis only because I live in Glasgow. I would probably skip a few of I still lived up there. We've gone from having a full bus come down from Aberdeen for the Hibs semi in 2017 to three of us at the Hearts semi in 2025. It's not a one-off occasion anymore.

And what's the reason for that? That they're all glory hunters?

"Fan experience" is modern day bollocks. The team has a big game, get down there and support them. Or don't, whatever. It's up to the individual to decide for themselves and I'm not criticising anyone for their own decisions and circumstances but it undermines our claims to have a big support when thousands don't bother going, but would for a final. This might be our biggest game of the season - hope not, but it might - and yet thousands won't bother. We had 40,000 at Parkhead and a gazillion out on Union St not much more than a year ago, yet we'll get 13,000 or less on a Saturday evening in Glasgow. Disappointing.

Surely for a fan, being at the game is better than watching it on TV anyway?

In Glasgow the whole week leading up to the semi, and have to get home on the Saturday, as something else on, so I'm neither going or watching it. Would have squeezed it in, if it was at 12:30pm.

Sods law!

I'll be at the final though.

1 hour ago, wee toon red said:

Surely for a fan, being at the game is better than watching it on TV anyway?

100% this

Ticket ordered yesterday 👍

1 hour ago, wee toon red said:

"Fan experience" is modern day bollocks. The team has a big game, get down there and support them. Or don't, whatever. It's up to the individual to decide for themselves and I'm not criticising anyone for their own decisions and circumstances but it undermines our claims to have a big support when thousands don't bother going, but would for a final. This might be our biggest game of the season - hope not, but it might - and yet thousands won't bother. We had 40,000 at Parkhead and a gazillion out on Union St not much more than a year ago, yet we'll get 13,000 or less on a Saturday evening in Glasgow. Disappointing.

Surely for a fan, being at the game is better than watching it on TV anyway?

Did you ignore the part about cost? It's bloody expensive to go. For a lot of people, a trip to Hampden will be a once a season affair, and you'd have to choose whether to go to this one and forfeit going to a final, or semi/final in the Scottish cup. I can see why folk would give it a miss.

You've also got the family angle. Both kick off time, opponent and Hampden layout work against bringing kids <10.

3 hours ago, wee toon red said:

We had 40,000 at Parkhead

People would moan about the small turnout if it was only 20,000 or so die hards at Parkhead. Yet others aren't happy with the attendance record of a lot of the 40,000 that did turn up. Swings and roundabouts. It's all a load of pish really.

3 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

Did you ignore the part about cost? It's bloody expensive to go. For a lot of people, a trip to Hampden will be a once a season affair, and you'd have to choose whether to go to this one and forfeit going to a final, or semi/final in the Scottish cup. I can see why folk would give it a miss.

You've also got the family angle. Both kick off time, opponent and Hampden layout work against bringing kids <10.

The cost part is why I said I don't judge any individual for going or not going. However, it's not so expensive that I'd expect 2/3rds of the league cup final crowd to be unable to afford it. It's fine if people would rather not go (obviously), I just don't think we're as big a club as we like to claim to be if we can't sell out a semi final.

31 minutes ago, wee toon red said:

The cost part is why I said I don't judge any individual for going or not going. However, it's not so expensive that I'd expect 2/3rds of the league cup final crowd to be unable to afford it. It's fine if people would rather not go (obviously), I just don't think we're as big a club as we like to claim to be if we can't sell out a semi final.

How big a club do we claim to be?

8 minutes ago, tlg1903 said:

How big a club do we claim to be?

I claim that we're the biggest club on the planet. But that's just my unbiased opinion.

29 minutes ago, wee toon red said:

The cost part is why I said I don't judge any individual for going or not going. However, it's not so expensive that I'd expect 2/3rds of the league cup final crowd to be unable to afford it. It's fine if people would rather not go (obviously), I just don't think we're as big a club as we like to claim to be if we can't sell out a semi final.

The league cup final was the anomaly though. The Scottish cup final from two years ago would be a better comparison. Half that, basically.

It'll probably cost me between £70-120 to go to the semi. Or ¼ of a season ticket. Same again for the final if we get there. That's just me. If I were to take the kids (don't be ridiculous!) that would easily double. Say £200 for the semi, £400 if we get through. Obviously, the antisocial kick off time means that a lot of families will be put off going anyway. I'd say that any big game at Hampden will be a difficult choice for folk to go to or not. The good thing about a final is that you know that if you win you don't have to splash out another few hundred quid shortly after for another trip to weegieland.

7 hours ago, wee toon red said:

"Fan experience" is modern day bollocks.

Are you Mike Mulraney?

7 hours ago, wee toon red said:

The team has a big game, get down there and support them. Or don't, whatever. It's up to the individual to decide for themselves and I'm not criticising anyone for their own decisions and circumstances

You literally just did. Even in your first sentence.

7 hours ago, wee toon red said:

but it undermines our claims to have a big support when thousands don't bother going, but would for a final.

Rangers and Celtic, before they brought in a cup ticket scheme that basically automatically signs them up for cup tickets, used to regularly sell fewer than 20,000 tickets for semi-finals played in their own city.

Are they not big clubs?

7 hours ago, wee toon red said:

Surely for a fan, being at the game is better than watching it on TV anyway?

I gave you just one example of how, often, being at the game isn't better.

Fans can go to a pub in Aberdeen, spend their money on beer and food, watch it with their mates, see that's actually happening on the pitch and with VAR, and have a cracking day out.

Or they can pay extra to drive most of the day, get a seat miles from the pitch, and stand in the pissing rain.

On 17/09/2026 at 13:30, wee toon red said:

Justify it all you want but you’re not convincing me. An easy cruise down a dual carriageway and onto a motorway isn’t a tough journey, Robbo. For a club and support that likes to boast about our numbers and commitment (and, generally, it is remarkable given how crap the team mostly is), we seem to let ourselves down when it comes to semis.

If we were playing the Huns at Pittodrie at 8pm on a Wednesday we’d had over 18000 reds there, so a third of them at least choose not to go to Glasgow on a Saturday for a bigger game. I just think that’s poor.

A third of your 18000 probably come from some distance outside of Aberdeen.

Happy to be proven wrong but the most I can remember us taking to a semi final since 1995 would be the DUFC semi at Hampden in 2015 when we had roughly 18,000 there.