A crazy day of phone calls, spot-kicks and ditching Willie Miller
SMITH RELIVES HAMPDEN WIN OVER CELTIC
TWENTY-SEVEN years have passed, yet Alex Smith can still rhyme off the names of the men who made history. ‘Jim Bett was first, Robert Connor second, Hans Gillhaus was third and Brian Grant fourth, Charlie Nicholas was fifth, Alex McLeish sixth, Stewart McKimmie seventh, then it went David Robertson, Graham Watson and big Brian Irvine,’ he said with a grin that grew wider with each passing name.
In case you’re wondering, the above-mentioned are the ten Aberdeen players who scored nine times — that’s nine — from the penalty spot as the 1990 Scottish Cup final was settled by shoot-out for the first time ever.
Only Grant failed to find the net and, with Dariusz Wdowczyk also missing before Theo Snelders stopped Celtic’s tenth attempt from Anton Rogan, he won’t mind if people forget his slip-up.
Smith, Aberdeen boss at the time, was no great fan of a process he likened to ‘shooting ducks at a fairground’; he felt for beaten finalists Celtic, was troubled by the thought of anyone losing a major trophy in such a haphazard manner.
Ask him now and Smith, still playing an active role with Falkirk and an invited guest of the Dons at Hampden this weekend, says he has learned to ‘live with’ the idea of penalties as a way of deciding matches.
Should the current Aberdeen team match all-conquering Celtic through 90 minutes and extra time to earn themselves a shot at glory via spot-kicks from 12 yards, it’s unlikely that the veteran coach will complain. In an entertaining chat with
Sportsmail at the Falkirk Stadium, Smith recalled plenty about the last time the Dons lifted the famous trophy.
From deciding not to give living Reds legend Willie Miller even a place on the bench and being told by his coaching staff to keep a flagging Charlie Nicholas on the park in case of penalties, to his confidence in sending on young Graham Watson with that ‘lottery’ looming, Smith can tap into a treasure trove of memories. Starting with one of the toughest selection calls he ever made.
‘That was an excellent team we had,’ said the former St Mirren manager, famously the only boss to win the Scottish Cup with two ‘provincial’ sides.
‘They played the football the right way. And that helped me make one of the biggest decisions I ever had to make.
‘Willie Miller was trying to recover from a knee injury but, really, his knee was a mess. He’d been playing with it for a while when it was just bone to bone. How he ever got onto the park and played, I don’t know. ‘He had two or three reserve games before the final, then played against Celtic about ten days before the final. ‘The game was at Parkhead, I picked a young team plus Willie. They lost a goal to Celtic in the first two minutes — but then gave Celtic a bit of a doing in a game where they needed the points to get into Europe. ‘We had Eoin Jess, Stephen Wright, Graham Watson. It was a team of kids. Plus Willie. ‘Now Willie had been captain during the successful years with Alex. And I had a decision to make. ‘The way we had played without him made up my mind about how we wanted to play against Celtic. ‘So I picked big Brian Irvine alongside Alex McLeish. It was a tough decision, but he took it like a pro. ‘Our form had been magnificent without Willie. We beat Hearts 4-1 in the quarterfinal, Dundee United 4-0 in the semi-final. ‘I allowed Willie to burst himself in a bid to get there. I owed him that. But I spoke to him on the Friday night.
‘I told him I wouldn’t patronise him by asking him to be on the bench.
‘I just felt he had earned every medal he had. He was a magnificent player. He took it like every good pro — he hoped to play, but understood.
‘On the day itself, well, I’d been there with St Mirren. And the squad I had at Aberdeen at the time, they were such a good team that your team talks prior to the game were simple.
‘You knew they could handle a game like that. You were talking to a team containing remnants of the Alex Ferguson era, where they had to go out and win in Glasgow.
‘They were complemented by the excellent Dutch players. So they could handle the occasion.’
After a stalemate over 90 minutes, both Smith and opposite number Billy McNeill — ‘It was an honour to share the final with such a great man,’ says the ex-Dons gaffer — tinkered and tweaked in pursuit of a victory that would have avoided the dreaded penalties.
So far were they from the Aberdeen manager’s thoughts, in fact, that he nearly substituted one of his most able strikers ahead of the shoot-out.
Picking up the tale of how Nicholas nearly didn’t stay on to help beat the team he always loved, the club he would rejoin in a matter of weeks, Smith said: ‘The decision had been made that Charlie was going back to Celtic.
‘There’s a wee story behind that, actually. It had been an uncompromising game and, with five or ten minutes of extra time to go, I saw Charlie tiring.
‘I was up in the stand, suspended, and I phoned down to Jocky Scott and Drew Jarvie about taking Charlie off.
‘Then Jocky came back on, saying: “Boss, Charlie is a penaltykick man …” The pair of them had realised that the game was heading that way and convinced me to keep him on.
‘Charlie scored the penalty we needed to stay in the shoot-out and send it to sudden death. I never had a doubt he would score.
‘He didn’t jump about and celebrate. He knew the consequences. But he was absolutely professional.’
Explaining how his views on penalties had matured, former Scotland Under-21 boss Smith (left) said: ‘I’ve got to admit that they are a way of working games into schedules, getting games played and getting a conclusion to the game.
‘I can understand that. You have to get a conclusive result. I live with it now.
‘But I never thought it was a way to decide a game of football, least of all a Scottish Cup final.
‘I said before the game that I wasn’t for it, that it was like shooting ducks at the fairground.
‘We didn’t work on penalties. We knew that guys in the team could take them in big games — Gillhaus, Nicholas, Connor.
‘And we knew Theo could save one. He told me just the other day he had theories about where right-footed and left-footed players would put the ball, directing it across their bodies.
‘Anton Rogan’s penalty produced a very good save. It was a very good penalty. That boy got a very hard time, but he didn’t miss it — Theo saved it. It was a great save.
‘Big Brian Irvine would still be standing in the queue if the penalties were going on now, because he wanted to be at the back.
‘But, when it came his time, he took on the mantle. And he strode up. I remember him striding up with the ball, putting it down and looking confident.
‘Halfway through the penalties, I had become kind of indifferent to the whole process.
‘But it was a wonderful example of that team’s nerve and that team’s ability to handle the big occasion.
‘They proved to me that they had the right stuff.’