Unexpected Winners: Aberdeen 1983 European Cup Winners’ Cup
It’s safe to say that Sir Alex Ferguson is pretty well known for his achievements with Manchester United and whilst many know about his time at Aberdeen, very few in England know just how successful he was north of the border.
Ferguson took over in 1978 and quickly revolutionised a side that had only ever won the Scottish top flight once before. He spent his first season finding out what he had to work with and his second year in charge the Dons took off. By the end of the 1979/80 season they had clinched their second title and continued to build on that success afterwards.
In the rest of Fergie’s time with the Dandies they won three successive Scottish Cups from 1982 to 1984 and clinched another two league titles in 1984 and 1985. To this day, the 1985 Aberdeen side are the last team to win the Scottish title from outside the Old Firm. However, Sir Alex’s greatest achievement of all was clinching the first European silverware for the Dons.
The European Cup Winner’s Cup doesn’t exist anymore but back in the 80’s it was a golden chance for clubs to clinch an extra piece of silverware. Despite that, it was still dominated by some of Europe’s top clubs and was incredibly difficult to win.
Aberdeen had to start the competition in the preliminary round and completed an 11-1 aggregate rout of Swiss side Sion with Mark McGhee and Eric Black grabbing five of the goals. They were then drawn against Albanian side Dinamo Tirana in the first round proper and won the first leg at home 1-0 thanks to a goal from John Hewitt. The second leg would end in a 0-0 bore draw but it was enough to see the Dandies through to a second round matchup with Polish side Lech Poznan.
Again the Scottish side would play their first leg at home and delighted the Pittodrie crowd with a 2-0 win as McGhee once again found the net with Peter Weir scoring just a minute later. Douglas Bell scored the only goal of the second leg to clinch a 3-0 aggregate victory and advance the Dons to the quarter-finals where they would face a true European giant, Bayern Munich.
For the only time in their cup run, Aberdeen would play their away leg first but survived it unscathed with a 0-0 draw. This set the stage for an epic second leg in Scotland with the Dons going behind on two separate occasions but drawing level both times thanks to goals from Neil Simpson and Alex McLeish. Just a minute after McLeish had equalised, Hewitt put them in front with yet another massive goal. Ferguson’s side would hold on for a famous victory and advance to the semi-finals with a 3-2 aggregate win.
There they would face the now extinct, Waterschei Thor from Belgium. Inspired by a brace from McGhee, Aberdeen would put the Belgians away in the first leg winning the game 5-1 at Pittodrie. They succumbed to a 1-0 loss in the return leg but the damage was already done and Ferguson’s side had booked a place in their first European final.
The Dons would travel to Gothenburg in Sweden for the final, followed by half of Aberdeen and a song that had been especially written for the final. Few expected them to win though considering their opponents were the mighty Real Madrid, who had the competitions top scorer Santillana. The Spanish side had already seen off Inter Milan and Austria Wien on their way to the final and were looking to add the Scottish side to that list.
Fergie’s side clearly hadn’t read the script though with Black opening the scoring after just seven minutes. Gordon Strachan continued to impress in the middle of the park and captain Willie Miller was marshalling from the back, but Los Blancos were soon on level terms after Juanito converted a 14th minute penalty.
The two sides couldn’t be separated after that for the rest of the 90 minutes and the match went into extra time. It took until the 112th minute for the deadlock to be broken and once again the goal came from Hewitt, who converted McGhee’s low cross with a glancing diving header.
The Dons would hold on to win the trophy to spark scenes of jubilation on the sideline and in Scotland, becoming only the third Scottish side to win a European trophy. They followed it up a few months later by beating Kevin Keegan’s Hamburger SV in the European Super Cup to complete an unlikely double.
After Ferguson left for Manchester in 1986, Aberdeen struggled to compete with Rangers and Celtic and have only won three trophies in the 36 years since with no other Scottish club managing to win the league in that time.
If you ever needed any more proof that Sir Alex is the greatest British football manager then look no further.