Aberdeen played St. Johnstone in their first ever season.

St Johnstone first visited Pittodrie on Northern League duty on 29th August 1903. That was the Dons’ first season in existence after the amalgamation of the original Aberdeen, Orion and Victoria United. The three local teams that had amalgamated to form the new club had played the Perth side many times before. The ‘Whites’ of Aberdeen prevailed 5-1 with captain Willie MacAulay among the scorers. The Dons then recorded a 3-1 victory in the return fixture.

St Johnstone first visited Pittodrie on Division One business in 1924/25 on Saturday 1^st November. Aberdeen won 2 – 1 in front of 12,000.

One of the most memorable encounters came back in 1964/65 in front of a paltry 5,000 crowd at Pittodrie. An inconsistent Dons team raced into a 4-2 lead at half time courtesy of goals from Little, Coutts and a brace from Kerr. When Saints defender McKinven turned the ball into his own net nine minutes after the break, it looked like game over. However McLindon netted twice in two minutes and in the 89th minute, Richmond grabbed an equalizer after Shewan had earlier cleared off the line. A further two goals had been disallowed so the fans had been royally entertained, if ultimately disappointed.

St Johnstone defeated Aberdeen 2-0 at their old Muirton Park ground in April 1976 as they dragged the Dons back into a relegation struggle in the first season of the new 10-team Premier League. With two sides dropping out in that first season, the win was not enough to save the Perth side as they had been rooted to the foot of the league all season. Aberdeen went to the last day before securing their top flight status with a 3-0 win over Hibernian.

Aberdeen’s biggest win against the Saints is 5-0 and this has happened on three occasions. The first came in the Scottish Cup run of 1967 at Pittodrie, then in 1983 the Dons won 5-0 home and away with John Hewitt helping himself to a hat-trick in Perth.

Interestingly, Hewitt is the only Don to ever score a hat-trick against the Perth side. Saints’ biggest win was also 5-0 and that came in that extraordinary encounter in Perth in September 1990. Aberdeen recovered to take the title challenge to the last day of the season. Of course the Saints also scored five in their last visit to Pittodrie in October.

This will be the 124nd meeting in the league, but match 150th overall. A victory today would be the Dons 50th league success over the Saints (not including the 2 Northern League games).

Total Head to Head Record
 

AFC Heritage Trust | for a view of all the Dons head to head stats click here