This is the rest of the Harry Reid article which had the section about Willie in it:
There has been a lot of talk over the past few days about Aberdeen having lost more than just a manager.
They are alleged to have “lost” their home city. Well, writing as a long-suffering Aberdeen fan of around 50 years standing, I can safely state that Aberdeen FC have rarely “won” their home city.
Part of the reason for this is that Aberdeen is a one-club city. This is often regarded as an advantage. But I’ve often thought that the situation in Glasgow (obviously) or Edinburgh or even Dundee, where you have clubs who are intense rivals, providing an ongoing tribal spirit and loyalty, might be preferable.
Indeed the only sustained period that I can recall the city and the club getting along pretty well was between 1975 and 1986, when an extraordinary triumvirate of managers – Ally MacLeod, Billy McNeill and, of course, Alex Ferguson – transformed the club. I can hear chuckles of derision. Ally MacLeod? But yes, Ally was just what Aberdeen needed in November 1975.
The club was in the most dismal of doldrums and attendances were pathetic, around 5000. Ally breezed in, with his infectious cheeky chappy persona, and his often absurd gimmicks, but somehow the city took to him. He gave everyone a laugh. He had no idea of tactics, although he signed one or two not bad players and he actually won a trophy for the club. But in his ridiculous way he undoubtedly made Pittodrie a brighter, livelier place, and that is no easy achievement.
Then Scotland came calling and Ally was off to manage the national team. Just in time, from Aberdeen’s point of view – just before Ally was found out, as he undoubtedly would have been. Scotland’s loss was Aberdeen’s gain. But over a whirlwind, crazy 20 months, he fairly cheered the club – and the city – up.
Then came McNeill’s solitary season. The man had an aura; everyone respected him. He made two superb signings, for peanuts – Gordon Strachan and Steve Archibald – and then he was off to his spiritual home at Celtic Park. Next came a genius, Alex Ferguson, on his way to becoming the best manager in the whole of Europe. He had a good platform to build on.
Before these three remarkable but very different men left their imprint on the club, Aberdeen was languishing in what, alas. might well be its natural condition. That is mid table, or even down table, mediocrity.
For some reason, games against Clyde were often the worst. I can still recall clearly a ghastly defeat by those opponents in a league game exactly 46 years ago. The Pittodrie attendance was less than 3000, but the crowd made a lot of noise – not supporting the feckless team, of course not. Rather the “supporters” abused the hapless manager Tommy Pearson and the local players in the team – who were always treated far worse than imports from Glasgow or wherever – such as Ernie Winchester and Doug Coutts. As Clyde knocked in three goals with insolent ease, the spite and venom directed at Pearson reached a quite horrible level.
A couple of years later, and the club was undergoing one of its occasional “revivals”, this time under Eddie Turnbull. But Eddie was too dour to reach any real affinity with the home fans, perhaps because most of them had already taken dourness to world-class levels. Turnbull was feared and was a superb coach but he did not inspire positivity in the club or the city.
From this particular era, I remember a grim 1-1 draw with Clyde. Towards the end an old man, standing near me, had enough. He turned and left, pausing only to enunciate one rasped, bitter word: “Putrid”. And then he spat, hard. The icy wind caught the gob. It described a weird parabola and then splattered spectacularly against the Merkland Road wall. That was the most exciting thing I’d seen all afternoon, and it captured the true spirit of Pittodrie, then and now. And yet somehow I manage to love the place. I can’t think of anywhere in the world that means more to me.
Aberdeen’s most loyal and steadfast fans have always come not from the city, but from its huge agricultural hinterland. Aberdeen has also had the benefit of a fine away support, many of whom live well away from Pittodrie. They too have shown much loyalty and spirit over recent years. In the second league game this season, in Perth, when the Dons had a fluky win over St Johnstone, there were 4000 of them inside McDiarmid Park.
That day there was palpable sense of need, an almost tangible longing for some kind of genuine revival. Yet just a month later at Motherwell there were only a few hundred Aberdeen fans present. They are seeping away fast and it will require someone special to bring them back.
The current favourite to succeed Mark McGhee is Billy Stark. He is an excellent coach, and served Aberdeen well as an intelligent goalscoring midfielder towards the end of the Ferguson era. In season 1984/85 he scored a remarkable 20 goals (in only 38 appearances) from midfield. He was a player who was too often underestimated, by Aberdeen fans and opponents alike.
But he is a quiet man; his style is not raucous or outrageous. He is no Ally MacLeod. He is too introverted to arrive in Aberdeen and shake the place up. Whether we like it or not, and I don’t particularly, what Aberdeen need right now is a new Ally, someone who will breeze in, provide great crazy dollops of life and spirit and hope, no matter how implausibly and – most important of all – bring a little heart and soul to that most grim of places.
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This is the rest of the Harry Reid article which had the section about Willie in it: