Scottish Cup Fifth Round, Dens Park, 23/2/16.

I kind of expected something like this. We don’t have a good record at Dens and midweek games are problematic for part-time teams against full-timers. Yet things could have been so different.

It was my first look at Christian Nade as a Son – and at Kler Heh too. Nade was the sort of forward we haven’t had in such a long time. He held the ball up and distributed it well. He’s not the quickest but his control is good. He’s the focus in attack we’ve been desperately needing. I doubt he’ll score many but he may allow time for others to get forward in support. Heh seemed a bit lightweight against this kind of opposition but he clearly has talent. He’ll need to savvy up about shielding the ball though and learn to avoid being shrugged off it.

We looked OK for 15 minutes and Dundee, while a cut above our usual opponents, weren’t really threatening, then ex-Son Paul McGinn wriggled clear in the box and beat Mark Brown at his near post and it might as well have been all over. It was after half an hour, though. Mark Brown waited to gather the ball, attacker Kane Hemmings didn’t. No way were we getting two goals back.

The third was a collective failure as Greg Stewart waltzed across the front of the defence before hitting his shot past Brown who seemed slow in getting down. (Do you sense a pattern here?)

The fourth was a joke. Mark Brown parried straight out a ball he could almost certainly have caught. It was returned into the net.

The fifth I knew was going in as soon as Jon Routledge made the professional foul. (He got booked for his trouble.) Mark Brown never even moved for the shot despite being nearly on top of it.

In my opinion Brown ought to have saved four out of the five goals. How different would the game have been if he had?

After the third we went to a back three and suddenly had space for going forward. With better crossing into the box we might have got something

Best thing of the night? A Dundee four on one break ended when their player ballooned the cross well over when totally unmarked. Highly amusing. There’s your Premier Division class right there.

Nade’s play gives me hope that we might be more menacing in future. Is that kind of sentiment fatal?

Scottish Cup Fifth Round, The Rock, 6/2/16.

Well it’s another clean sheet and we’re in the hat for the quarter final draw. Plus there ought to be a good portion of gate money for the club from the replay.

Dens Park isn’t far away from Son of the Rock Acres so I’ll doubtless be attending.

Unfortunately St Mirren won today so we dropped a place in the league.

I just hope the Cup doesn’t distract us and detract from our league prospects. Two big away games against teams just above us are coming up.

The fruit of our Cup win against Queen of the South is one of the two above, who have still to settle their tie.

On paper either of them should beat us. But it’s a home game which may count a bit in our favour.

To be played on the first weekend in February.

Scottish Cup Fourth Round, The Rock, 9/1/16.

Well. Here’s a rarity.

These are the first goals we’ve ever scored against Queen of the South at the Rock. Very welcome indeed.

And another round of the Cup to look forward to.

I just hope we can repeat the feat next week. I think I’d rather have the three points.

Scottish Cup, Third Round, The Rock, 8/12/15

A stonking win. Good to see young Donald McCallum get a start and a quick goal (19 seconds!) Also to see Jordan Kirkpatrick get on and score two goals.

Onwards and upwards, eh?

I see from the club website that if we beat Alloa in the Cup our next opponents would be Queen of the South at the Rock.

Given we’ve never even scored a goal against them since we moved to the Rock that’ll be us out of the Cup then.

Right now I’d rather take three points at Alloa this Saturday in the league over progress in the Cup this time next week. Doubtless it’ll be the other way round.

Well this is a surprise.

We haven’t been drawn in the cup against the highest placed league team possible.

(But neither have we drawn a lower league team.)

Instead it’s Alloa at home.

We play them away the next weekend too.

I see we’ve been drawn at home in the Cup.

Is this a reversion back to our usual cup draw luck? Rangers are the highest placed team (currently) we could possibly have got.

Still we beat a Tier 2 side at the same stage last year.

Scottish Cup Final, Celtic Park, 17/5/14.

Congratulations to St Johnstone on winning their first ever cup final. I watched the game on TV and they were worth the win – though had the Dundee United effort that came off the post in the first half at 0-0 gone in the story might have been different. It didn’t, though, and Dundee United didn’t really create much else, or rather, they weren’t allowed to.

Not being a regular spectator of football in the Scottish top Division – I mostly abjure the highlights shown on Sunday nights and never look at league games – I was pleasantly surprised by the standard of play on display.

My younger son has just moved from Perth and told me that in the run-up to the final Perth town centre shops were all done up in blue – apart from one barber’s shop in tangerine. You could even buy blue beer!

The party will doubtless still be going on.

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:-