THESE are heady times for Aberdeen. Relatively speaking, of course. If the first half of the 1980s, when they were winning league titles and European trophies, can be discarded as some sort of Fergie-inspired anomaly, then this is as good as it gets for the Pittodrie club, writes Graeme Macpherson.
Remarkable as it seems now, Aberdeen finished in the bottom half of the Premier League for four successive seasons prior to Derek McInnes’s arrival as manager. They hadn’t reached a cup final since 2000, hadn’t won a trophy since 1995. For a so-called giant of the Scottish game, it was a fairly appalling charge sheet.
The past four seasons have been substantially better. McInnes is on course to deliver second place for a third successive year, has led Aberdeen to the 2014 League Cup and now into their first Scottish Cup final since the turn of the millennium, having also contested the League Cup final earlier in the campaign.
They have benefitted, of course, from Rangers’ fall from grace in 2012, a seismic shift that turned the Old Firm’s duopoly into a monopoly for Celtic while creating a vacancy for the second-best team in the country that Aberdeen have seized.
The reality of the situation suggests they are unlikely to challenge Celtic’s supremacy, and that Rangers, at some point, will come again. All Aberdeen can do, then, is continue to show they deserve to be considered the best of the rest by finishing as runners-up in the league, while attempting to reach cup semi-finals and finals. They did not do themselves justice in the League Cup final back in November but May 27 now offers them a shot at instant redemption.
“It doesn’t sit well with anybody that we hadn’t reached a Scottish Cup final for 17 years,” said McInnes. “For a club like Aberdeen it is far too long. But we can only deal with our time here. That’s us now reached five semi-finals in four years and we have won three of them. That for me is a decent return.
“That period is what we concentrate on. We have won one final and lost one and it is a total contrast of emotions. Hopefully, the experiences we have gained over the past wee while will help us going into the final.
“There are always doubters out there who question our desire to reach finals and it’s not easy doing that.”
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