YOU suspect only a laundromat could provide the requisite capacity to ?process the dirty linen shared by Aberdeen legends Willie Miller and Joe Harper.

 

Harper – King of the Beach End when he was mobile, an ?enthusiastic proponent of blunt speaking now that he isn’t – highlights their lack of a relationship: “It’s my belief Willie doesn’t have a friend in the world. He walks about the town like a lone soul.

 

“When he was a team-mate I’d have run over broken glass for him, but I wouldn’t have gone for a drink with him at night. I think that’s the best way to sum it up. We’ll never be friends. We speak, we say hello, but he’d never stop and have a five-minute conversation with me, and, to be fair, neither would I.

 

“As a matter of fact, I’ve been standing in the wee reception area at Pittodrie, talking to the girls, and he’ll go straight past me and up the stairs. That doesn’t bother me, though. In many respects, I feel the same about Willie as I do about Fergie. The fact is I couldn’t give a s*** about either of them.â€

 

Full article: http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/joey-harper-doesn-t-pull-his-punches-when-it-comes-to-aberdeen-1.925411

 

He's a bitter man!

You're not wrong Kow.

 

“It’s my belief Willie doesn’t have a friend in the world. He walks about the town like a lone soul.

 

“When he was a team-mate I’d have run over broken glass for him, but I wouldn’t have gone for a drink with him at night. I think that’s the best way to sum it up. We’ll never be friends. We speak, we say hello, but he’d never stop and have a five-minute conversation with me, and, to be fair, neither would I.

 

Absolute irrelevant guff.  What has any of the above got to do with how Miller does his job?

 

While I’m considering the tricks of this violent trade, his pugnacity re-emerges. “It wouldn’t have been a very clever thing for them to do, would it? Can you imagine what they would have done in the paper? ‘Aberdeen legend gets sacked for saying his piece.’ Not, mind, that it would worry me. I mean, they don’t pay me enough to worry about that sort of thing. I know I could go somewhere else on a Saturday that would pay me a lot more. And that’s with a Highland League club!

 

“I don’t do it for the money, though. I do it because I like Aberdeen. I love entertaining people in my lounge

 

So you don't do it for the money, but still find just cause to mention how little a broke club are paying you?  Just what the club needs, Joey, more mud slung at it in public from those who love the club...oh, sorry, you just like the club. But you love entertaining folk in your lounge.. that the club gave you, in their stadium...

 

I was always wanting to score goals and entertain. I know a lot of times I wisnae the best player. For instance, Davie Robb worked his socks off many times and probably deserved the bonus more than I did. But I would be the one who’d stick it in the net with a minute to go to get us that bonus.â€

 

Yeah, cos it's all about Joey Harper eh? Fuck all to do with Bobby Clark at the other end keeping them out? If you were chocolate etc and so on and so forth...

 

Certainly, entertainment was forever Harper’s forte. Still is. A small boy recently told him his hero was Darren Mackie. Harper replied that it was right to have heroes. “Are you as good as Darren Mackie?†the lad asked. “I think so, son,†teased Joey, “but you’ve got to remember I’m 61!’â€

 

Did that really happen, Joey? Really??

 

That’s where you get this hero status from, and I’ve carried that on all my life, even when football gave up on me and I gave up on football. I’ve always spoken to people. When sitting in restaurants, I’ve put my fork and knife down and signed autographs, given them five or 10 minutes of my time and left them happy. There are other people in this game, and you probably know who I’m talking about, who are the exact opposite. They can’t be bothered.â€

 

Is this, you wonder, a reference to Miller? Harper responds with silence and a non-committal smile

 

Good on ye.  I've met Miller a few times and he's been nothing but an utter gent every time.  The fact you put your knife and fork down doesn't make you any more or less of a hero.  Willie Miller is the finest and most influential player we have ever had and probably will ever have in my lifetime.  The fact he may not enjoy the limelight as much as a certain former overweight prolific striker doesn't make him less of a hero and doesn't belittle anything he achieved for the club - which was colossal, in case anyone missed it...

 

“I don’t think any of the players would come up and abuse me. I don’t think any of them are brave enough. Obviously, my saying that they’re bottlers has got to them, but if that gets them doing what they did against Rangers, well… But, hey, don’t let anyone kid you on: the Rangers game was s****! Aberdeen were s****! They could still have got beaten four or five nil. All it did was cover the cracks.â€

 

Could have got beaten four or five nil, but didn't. Credit where it's due.  And maybe it's nothing to do with none of them being brave enough to come up and abuse you, maybe they just don't care what a bitter old man has to say about them?

 

That life, he tells us with a smile, is Fergie-free. He and Ferguson became enemies almost as soon as the latter joined Aberdeen as manager in 1978. Harper believes jealousy was a contributory factor: the pair first met as players on a Scotland world tour, when the 17-year-old scored 10 goals in three games and had the media forgetting Fergie in order to salivate over his replacement.

 

Harper was not impressed with Ferguson’s playing ability. “He was all about wee steps and elbows. He didn’t have any skill. When he came to Pittodrie I’d scored 31 goals and 33 goals in those last two seasons, and yet he still kept saying to me: ‘You’ll no’ be here next season.’ He was desperate to get rid of me. As I says to him: ‘Listen, I didnae call myself The King. That was the fans.’ So when I see him now, I just ignore him. I have no interest in him and don’t care what he does with his life.

 

Yeah, Joey, cos Fergie was completely wrong to get rid of you.  If only he'd kept you we could have gone on to win league titles, cups and maybe even conquer Europe.. oh, wait...

 

“Great football manager, yeah, but he’s not moved on as a person. He puts on a good show, like he comes up to Govan and does the Boys’ Brigade thing. But I do that every day of my life in Aberdeen. Things for charity, things for sick children. I’m starting a race tomorrow morning in aid of a heart foundation.

 

Of course Fergie's not moved on, but good to see you have by not being bitter about a man who told you to leave a football club 30 years ago.

And of course, Fergie's a cunt for going on about charity work but when you do it it's really cool...

 

The only person Joe Harper has anything good to say about is Joe Harper.  I said on here that he in general he wasn't wrong in what he said after the Dundee game, but he's jumped the shark now. It's as if he's saying "Don't forget I was your hero too." It's bordering on the tragic.

 

 

Great post BB, no point in me quoting any of it as I completely agree with you! 

I too have met Miller a couple of times (he's never out of Soul bar on Union Street) and he's always been very pleasant.

 

One day Harper will stop grinding his axe.

Met them both and Miller was a far more decent guy than Harper was.