Pittodrie Stadium is the home of Aberdeen FC.

Approach to Beach End Stand:-

Approach to Away Section – Not very prepossessing, what with the menacing metal fencing all round the approach:-

East Stand (Beach End.) Houses away fans:-

North (Main) Stand, houses the players’ changing rooms and home fans seating. The players’ tunnel is not as is usual in the centre but at the right hand end as you look at it here:-

West Stand. Home fans again:-

South Stand. In the photo Sons fans are nearest. This doesn’t give the impression of how many were there (600.) Beyond a fence, most of the stand was taken up with Aberdeen fans:-

Home fans embracing the insult and carrying an inflatable sheep/lamb. As well as the sheep there were loads of balloons in Sons colours of black, white and gold floating around during the Scottish Cup game on 8/3/14:-

Sons players applaud fans at end of game:-

Scottish Cup, Round 6, Pittodrie Stadium, 8/3/14.

So, the dream lasted 53 minutes. It was good while it lasted.

Actually the dream was still on till the final whistle – but only of salvaging a draw.

A large contingent of Sons supporters travelled up to Pittodrie – for long stretches making more noise than the home fans, at least from the area where the away contingent was closeted. Several old favourites were trotted out along with the usual “Dumbarton,” clap, clap, clap, and “Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh. You’re shite, aaaaaah,” including, “We forgot that you were here,” “What a shitey home support,” “You only sing when you’re winning.” Special kudos to Aberdeen keeper Jamie Langfield for responding to the chant, “Jamie Langfield, you’re a wanker, you’re a wanker,” with a grin and thumbs up.

Aberdeen were undoubtedly the more accomplised team, they achieved more subtle angles and passes than we are used to but we matched them for just about the whole game. That their defenders had their arms around our two strikers every time the ball came up to them says a lot (one particular instance in the penalty box comes to mind.) So does the fact that the Aberdeen man of the match was centre half Russell Anderson. They looked vulnerable to the ball over the top (until Colin Rhyming Slang was substituted – he’d pulled up after an aerial challenge in their box and lasted only a few more minutes.) We resorted to that direct ball a little too often after they scored but our normal passing game was not as fluid as I’d hoped, Aberdeen not allowing us the space we’re used to. Aberdeen played with much more assurance after the goal but they still couldn’t produce the killer pass, tribute to our defence.

The goal was preventable, Scott Linton showed admirable confidence in trying to shepherd the ball out for a goal kick but he should have hoofed it. I just knew when the corner was awarded that the goal would come from it. And the corner could have been defended better.

(Poor Scotty’s day got worse when he got injured in a challenge and had to come off. Looked like a hamstring pull. We’ll miss his long throws.)

It wasn’t even our strongest team. Chris Turner was still out and loanee Mike Miller hasn’t started at centre half before.

Aberdeen got the benefit of 50/50 decisions from the referee – as you might expect for the “bigger” club.

One curiosity. The pitch was being watered, by pop-up sprinkler, before the game and at half time. Is this usual practice at Pittodrie or were they trying to make the pitch heavy because we’re a part time team?

Special mention to Andy Graham. He looked as if he was injured with about 25 minutes to go but kept on running and chasing and tackling even though he looked totally knackered.

It shows how far we’ve come in the past five years that the overriding emotion after we’ve lost 1-0 away to the second best team in the country is disappointment rather than relief.

I just hope that the efforts of this game and the injuries sustained don’t cost us in the league.

For those of you who know me see if you can spot me in this photo from the Dumbarton FC website.

For those of you who don’t, I’m somewhere above the D of the Dumbarton in the banner.

SPFL Tier 2, Palmerston Park, 1/3/14

Well that’s the unbeaten run gone for a comprehensive Burton then.

I don’t quite know what to make of it with the big Cup game coming up. We’ll certainly need to perform better than this result suggests we did today. I’ve not got much hope now Aberdeen seem to be justifying their second best team in Scotland status, except that we do ourselves justice against them next week.

SPFL Tier 2, The Rock, 22/2/14

I’ll take this – even though we were one up twice – as it keeps our unbeaten run in 2014 going and we were also one down at one point.

Nice to see Scott Agnew get on the score sheet. It’s his first non-penalty of the season. I don’t know if he’ll keep his place once Chris Turner is fit again though.

But… Cowdenbeath won again. The gap from us in fourth to them in ninth is only eight points. Safety is still a long way off.

Yet a draw next week at Palmerston will keep us fourth.

I hope the prospect of the Aberdeen Cup game the week after won’t be a distraction.

Yesterday afternoon I glimpsed a programme called Grand Tours of Scotland. I wouldn’t normally have watched this (mainly because the good lady thinks the presenter, Paul Murton, has an unappealing voice) but we were in someone else’s house at the time.

It was episode 6 of the series, the only one I’ve seen and Murton was “following the sun” up through the East of Scotland’s sea-side resorts. On the way he visited Stonehaven Swimming pool which has featured in my Scotland’s Art Deco Heritage posts (see link above.)

He ended up at the Beach Ballroom, Aberdeen, which is in my Aberdeen Art Deco Heritage posts. Murton undertook some dancing inside the Ballroom. The interior still retains Art Deco features.

Anyway the programme is available on the BBC iPlayer, but only until Wednesday 21/12/11, so if you tune in you can catch some glimpses yourself.

Also on the iPlayer (till tomorrow 20/12/11) is a piece, about 25 minutes in, from The One Show on the Midland Hotel, my post on which you can see via the link.

While looking up Eddie Turnbull’s career for my post on his death I noticed something remarkable.

Hibs won the league three times during Turnbull’s playing career; in 1948, 1951 and 1952. Not only that: in the seventeen years spanning their first win till Kilmarnock’s sole league title in 1965 no less than five different non-Old Firm sides won the league. Apart from Hibs and Kilmarnock, Hearts (1958, 1960,) Aberdeen (1955) and Dundee (1962) are on the roll of honour. That beats even the early years of the Scottish League when in its first 14 years Dumbarton – 1891 (shared with Rangers) and 1892 (outright) – Hearts (1895, 1897,) Hibs (1903) and Third Lanark (1904) all were champions of Scotland.

Can anyone imagine that sort of thing happening now?

The Old Firm duopoly is so entrenched that the mere thought is instantly dismissable.

The only team to upset the Old Firm domination of the league between the two World Wars of the last century was Motherwell, in 1932. (See here for the full list of winners.) The 28 year run from Third Lanark’s title in 1904 till Motherwell’s is the longest such period of unbroken Old Firm hegemony. So far.

At present it is 26 years since anyone but Rangers or Celtic won the league. (Aberdeen 1980, 1984 and 1985) and Dundee United (1983) are the only provincial sides to win a championship since the 1960s. Neither look likely to repeat the feat soon. Barring extraordinary circumstances, circumstances that are unforeseeable, to me at any rate, that 28 year record will be broken in 2014.

The Scottish Cup has always been a more likely prize for a “smaller” club to win but even so that 1950s and 60s period saw no fewer than seven non-Old Firm clubs lift the trophy. Aberdeen in 1947 (and 1970,) Motherwell (1952,) Clyde (1955 and 1958,) Hearts (1956,) Falkirk (1957,) St Mirren (1959) and Dunfermline Athletic (1961 and 1968.)

Of course, in those days the playing field was a bit more even as each club shared its gate money with the away team. Since the introduction of the system whereby each club keeps its own home gates the imbalance between the Old Firm and the rest has grown bigger. This is merely exacerbated by the Champions League money available to Celtic and Rangers nearly every season. (Though none of that stopped Rangers getting into substantial debt recently.)

The other clubs are simply not in a position to compete. It’s a sad and unhealthy situation.

I was saddened today to hear of the death of Eddie Turnbull.

Since his heyday as part of the great Hibernian forward line known as the “Famous Five” was in the 1940s and 50s I never saw him play. During that time he won no less than three league championships in five seasons. Imagine a Hibs player – a Hibs team! – doing that now. Turnbull was also the first Scottish player to score in European competition (Hibs were pioneers in the European Champions’ Cup.)

I most remember him as a manager of Aberdeen and Hibs in the 60s and 70s when he guided those teams to the Scottish Cup and the League Cup respectively. He had previously managed Queen’s Park. The Hibs team of that time may not have achieved quite the heights the Famous Five did but were a formidable presence in Scottish football.

As I recall Turnbull was of the old school and something of a disciplinarian – you’d probably not get away with that as a manager now.

Edward Hunter Turnbull: 12/4/1923 – 30/4/2011. So it goes.

For those of you who care about these things I decided a while ago that the numbering system I was using for my Scotland’s Art Deco Heritage posts had become too unwieldy.

For really signature buildings (or those geographically remote) I have retained the Scotland’s Art Deco Heritage title but otherwise I now list buildings under a narrower geographical heading, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee etc.

As a result I thought it better to re-number some earlier posts retrospectively and edit the posts accordingly.

For the record the changes are:-

Scotland’s Art Deco Heritage 6. Bon Accord Baths: now Aberdeen’s Art Deco Heritage 1

SADH 7. Carron Restaurant: now SADH 6

SADH 8 (and update.) Nardini’s: now 7 (and update)

SADH 9. Northern Hotel: now Aberdeen 2

SADH 10. Tarlair Swimming Pool: now 8

SADH 11. Ascot Cinema: now 9

SADH 12. Kelvin Court: now 10

SADH 13. Victoria Cinema: now Edinburgh’s Art Deco Heritage 1

SADH 14. Green’s Playhouse: now Dundee’s Art Deco Heritage 1

SADH 15. Murraygate (I): now Dundee 2

SADH 16. Murraygate (II and III): now Dundee 3

SADH 17. now Dundee 4

SADH 18. Causewayside Garage: now Edinburgh 2

SADH 19. Dumbarton: now 11

SADH 20. Tobermory: now 12

SADH 21. Perth: now 13

SADH 17 (ii). Lilybank Mews: now Dundee 5

SADH 9 (ii). Beach Ballroom: now Aberdeen 3

SADH 22. Stonehaven Swimming pool: now 14

End of public information announcement.

I found this article after a search for Aberdeen Art Deco reached this blog and I followed the link. The list of buildings begins on page 6 of the document.

As well as some cinemas it gives my first Aberdeen Art Deco feature the Bon Accord Baths,

Jackson’s Garage,

and Amicable House (see below from flickr.)

For Foresterhill Medical School, King’s College Sports Pavilion and Tullos Primary School I could find no photos.

The Northern Hotel, of course, I have featured before but here’s another picture.

(More of this hotel can be seen on flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/8333696/3203661261/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/8333696/3204511190/.)

No mention in the article of The Beach Ballroom, though.

In my other searchings I came across a Modernist House in Garthdee Road Aberdeen, Architect Roy Meldrum, near Gray’s Art School (see http://flickr.com/photos/74784995@N00/1356336304/ and http://flickr.com/photos/74784995@N00/1356336300/.)

Then there is The Lemon Tree/St Katherine’s Centre, Architects Jenkins and Marr 1937 (see at http://flickr.com/photos/74784995@N00/1368315644/.)

There is this too from Bon Accord Street.

There is also a striking relief on the side of a tenement.

Here’s yet more proof that Aberdeen does have Art Deco influenced buildings.

Among its claims to fame are a floor sprung on steel springs and that the Beatles played the final gig of their 1963 Scotland tour there.

This link shows a close up of the nice detailing above the doorway.

There’s a more general view here and a nice panorama plus some interior views at Scottish Cinemas.

This one is from a distance inland.

I got the following months ago from Aberdeen City Council website. I haven’t corrected the grammar in its second sentence:-

‘The building presents a low elevation to the promenade but, on entering, the visitor descends the main staircase from which the full height and space of the domed octagonal ballroom can be appreciated. The interior reflect the glamour and Art Deco style of the 1930s whilst the sprung floor of Canadian pine, enjoyed by generations of Aberdeen dancers is still intact. The extension on the seaside of the building was designed by the City Architects Department in the early 1960s.’

Their site has been updated but there’s still an orthographic error on the new page about the ballroom.