Long, but interesting read nonetheless. I'm sure most of you won't read it but it is a good read and well written post.
The Real Bottlers
Enough has been said about Calderwood to last a lifetime on this board but even a blind man can see his old fashioned managerial methods are tired and out of date. At various points this season his pre and post match summaries have been laughable. The over-use of words such as 'wonderful' and 'fabulous' have been trotted out almost on a daily basis when in actual fact both individual performances or team efforts have been anything but this. Its makes you wonder really how someone who made his name in Holland; where supposedly technical skills and intricate tactics are everything, came to attain a track record of jobs all be it minor ones in Holland. Whether his post match summaries in Holland were peppered with the word 'verwonderend' is open to question but if they were the fans of NEC Nijmegen and Willem II clearly got as tired of his cliche ridden spiel as we are.
There was a banner in the away end at Easter Road yesterday on display before the Hibernian game. It was to the point and said 'All Talk: No Bottle'. Essentially never a truer word has been spoken particularly if you read all the hot air and no action coming out of the numerous fan forums surrounding Aberdeen football club where the usual scapegoats of Foster et al have been vilified and hung out to dry. There have been calls for banners to be made, on-line petitions touted and even reference being made to where Jimmy Calderwood's house is when you use Google street maps.
All of the threads since Wednesday night have displayed anger, frustration and fury some angry and insightful and some first hand. On Radio Scotland during Sportsound yesterday Richard Gordon revealed that not 30 minutes after the Dunfermline disaster a number of players were having an 'alcohol fuelled jolly' in the Players lounge. On this board some 'in the know' posters have spoken of a board meeting not minutes after the game where the words 'Calderwood+Possible+sacked' were supposedly mentioned. It then went on to discuss how Willie Miller stormed out of the meeting leaving the other directors to chew over what just went on. So all in all, its all be interesting if hypothetical reading. Like the four bullet theory in tandem to JFK's shooting most of us will never know actually what went on. Players can get vilified on threads, characters can get questioned and abilities and skills held up to ridicule.
But then again there in lies a big problem for supporters; where else can you go to vent frustration in a constructive way? Sure you can stand outside Pittodrie after a game and spit blood at Blunderwood and his fellow managerial clowns but too be honest these demonstrations are almost always on a massively small scale barely numbering more than a few hundred and lasting half an hour. In truth most Aberdeen fans, well those that sit in the Main Stand anyway, have about as much passion for the club as they do for the tartan rugs they sit on. Yes, they support the club and buy a season ticket every year but the last time they expressed any anger was when the condiments ran out in the Main Stand pie shop or wrote a letter into the Evening Express complaining that Jimmy Calderwood was a nice man who should be given more money. Most fans who sit in the Main Stand are so out of touch with the hardcore they would be as well following Peterhead each week.
Which brings us to the 'real war criminals' in all of this. Essentially, almost every thread on whatever forum has failed to mention them in all of this; those who have the real power and ability to make changes that can effect what may or may not happen on the park. And these people ladies and gentlemen have been mentioned on a small minimal scale but they have unfortunately avoided most of the vilification and anger that has been thrown at the playing and management staff. These people are the Aberdeen Football club board of directors.
If you followed Scottish Football during the golden years then its acknowledged and accepted that his partnership with Alex McLeish was integral to the success of Aberdeen football club. To Aberdeen fans in particular he is a club legend but if you look closely at the symbols of him around the club whether immortalised in photos lifting a trophy in his distinctive one armed style or on his face on fan t-shirts and flags its all images of yesteryear. The Willie Miller we know today is a executive director of the club and he stormed onto the scene in May 2004 in a fit of decisive action, instantly sacking the pathetic Steve Paterson and in tandem to that making it clear he wanted his fellow Glaswegian Jimmy Calderwood to manage the club. So from the outset it was all very positive; change and decisive action at a crucial time from someone at board level. Willie Miller has been quoted as saying he was hurting badly to see the club the state it was in during the Paterson reign but if he was he must be in even more pain now. Moreover, what exemplified the Paterson reign was disorganisation but as a whole someone just being pathetically out of his depth as a manager of a major Scottish club. Paterson was a Highland league level manager with a drink problem. That in itself is sad personally for the man but for us it was nothing short of a disaster. Indeed, whoever decided he got the job in the first place is something that has never been fully explained and may hint towards why Willie Miller was taken back to the club at executive level.
Elsewhere on the board are an assortment of qualified Chartered Accountants and 'successful' businessmen. Or at least so we are told and led to believe. At non-executive director level Martin Gilbert of Aberdeen Asset Management is one of the most prominent figures. Recent years have seen him overseeing the debacle of the AAM financial mess and its said today he is still a big supporter of a vibrant Scottish financial services industry. Well if that discredited and vilified institution is one of the bearers of his good will we really all need to fear what his feeling are towards Calderwood. The only thing I can say positive about the financial industry is that even Sir Fed Goodwin is more popular than Calderwood at the moment. Indeed how much time he actually spends in Aberdeen working for the club has to be questioned and come under the microscope in these sad times for our club. The belief is that he spends most of his time in London, only being in Aberdeen from Friday onwards. I congratulate him on that, when he is not off on one of his skiing trips to the the Zermatt of course.
As far as the other non-executive directors are concerned very little is known of them publically and you would struggle to find many Aberdeen fans who know much of them. But that is what makes it all so scary; faceless people in charge of decision making at your club and you do not even know them. Take Hugh Little for example he again is a chartered accountant and a venture capitalist who seems to have made a name for himself in strategic acquisitions and planning. Another is Gordon Buchan who is a solicitor with Paul and Williamson and advises the Aberdeen board on all legal matters. He should have been a busy man the last few days but not at Aberdeen football club I would bet.
Higher up the food chain at executive level is where we find the real cowards and yellow skinned bottlers who have failed to make crucial business decisions. Duncan Fraser was the company secretary for a number of years, until attaining the role of executive director where he has been for a number of years. If ever anyone needed to find someone to direct questions at as to why Calderwood is still at the helm it is him. In tandem to Willie Miller the last few days have shown he is lacking in all the ingredients required to drive the club forward. These are decisive action, encouraging excellence and overseeing success at the club. The very fact that Jimmy Calderwood is still in his job as Aberdeen Manager means that we need to raise questions about his professional integrity as managing director of Aberdeen Football club.
There was seven cowardly bottlers hanging around the club and by now you will have noticed that the most important of them has not been mentioned yet. Come on you will know by now who he is but this piece is not even going to mention him by name. Nine exits from major cup tournaments including two high profile ones to Queen of the South and Dunfermline have failed to shift him from non-activity. Instead all he is probably planning are the latest round of job cuts from his multi-million pound making business. The type of job cuts where innocent hard working men who make a few hundred pounds a week are thrown out of a job all because his company share price has gone downhill slightly. Decisive action when your business greed needs to be appeased but not when its so starkly required at Aberdeen football club Mr. Milne.
Forget Jimmy Calderwood, Nichol and Clark they all know time is up as the management team at Aberdeen. They have long been going through the motions and have been doing so for some time. They thing they have in there favour is that they all work underneath a shower of corporate clowns and cowards who can barely decide what cereals to have each morning never mind make crucial leadership decisions to make a managerial change. Decisive action and leadership at director level was required after defeat to Queen of the South last year. If it had been made then the club might have found itself with the mouthwatering prospect of a semi final against Falkirk to look forward too. Instead all we can look forward to now is more managerial nonsense from Calderwood and with that stumbling along slowly to the end of the season.
And if we are really unlucky this time next year we can be digesting Calderwood's after match comments after another defeat to Dundee in the Scottish Cup Semi final. That would be just 'wonderful'.
Long, but interesting read nonetheless. I'm sure most of you won't read it but it is a good read and well written post.