Mark knew it wasn’t his night when he couldn’t jump out of Pittodrie
Mark Mcghee can still remember the exact moment he knew Aberdeen’s bid to retain the European CupWinners’ Cup was doomed.
The striker – who supplied the cross for John Hewitt’s winner against Real Madrid in Gothenburg in 1983 – was also part of the Dons team who crashed in the semi- final to Porto 11 months later.
Beaten 1-0 in Portugal in the first leg, Alex Ferguson’s all-conquering side went into the Pittodrie return as warm favourites to progress to the Final once again.
“We had beaten Akranes, Beveren and come from 2- 0 behind after the first leg in Hungary to knock Ujpest Dozsa out in the quarter- finals, so we were back on a run again,” recalled the 62-year-old.
“I was feeling pretty good too. “I had missed an absolute sitter in the first leg against Ujpest, and got the mother and father of all rows from Fergie.
“People always speak about the way he would give players the hairdryer treatment. Well, what I got that night was a thermo-nuclear blast!
“We all knew we had to do much better back in Aberdeen – myself especially – and thankfully we did. We won 3- 0 and I got a hat-trick.
“So because we had done so well in the competition, there was an expectation that, even though Porto had been very good in Portugal in the first game, we would still have enough to get past them.
“You have to remember what it was like back in the ’80s.
“Someone recently sent me a table of the European rankings back in mid-1984.
“It went 1) – Aberdeen. 2) – Liverpool. 3) – Manchester United. 4) – Dundee United. As incredible as it is to look back on, that is the way it was then.
“However, literally seconds after running out of the tunnel at Pittodrie for the return against Porto, I knew it was not going to be our night.
“I had a routine. There is a wee slope at Pittodrie and I would sprint up it for 20- 25 yards in the direction of the centre circle, and leap into the air to head an imaginary ball.
“On a good night – with the adrenaline pumping, the lights blazing and the fans right into it – I would feel like I could jump clean out of the stadium.
“This time, however, my
feet hardly got off the ground. Everything felt flat, and that was the exact word to describe our performance.
“They scored a great goal and, as the old saying goes, we were lucky to get nil. So that was that.
“It was a huge shame because to successfully defend the trophy would have been a magnificent achievement for a Scottish club to pull off.”
Thirty- six years on, Mcghee still is not entirely sure what went wrong.
“I wonder if it was because we were coming to the end of something great,” he said.
“I was off to Hamburg in the summer, Gordon Strachan was heading for Manchester United and some of the other lads were stalling on new deals.
“Fergie was threatening them that they wouldn’t play in the Scottish Cup Final against Celtic if they didn’t sign.
“So there was that wee feeling of discontent around the club at the time.
“Porto were a good team, even though they went on to lose to Juventus in the Final.
“There were rumours they’d tried to bribe the Romanian ref.
“They needn’t have bothered. Any help they needed, we gave them. That is how bad we were.”