The club are saddened to hear of the death of well known North East photographer Donald Stewart.

Donald was a familiar face to generations of AFC players, staff and supporters having covered The Dons since the 1970's- firstly with Aberdeen Journals and latterly for The Sun.

Donald bravely fought a battle with Motor Neurone Disease over the last year but sadly passed away on Friday.

Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this sad time.
 

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The following article appeared in RedMatchday last season:

Donald Stewart

When well-known photographer Donald Stewart announced that he was no longer going to cover games at Pittodrie, after the recent Jamie Langfield testimonial match, it marked the end of an era stretching back more than four decades.

Donald has been a major part of matchdays at Pittodrie since the mid-1970’s, firstly for Aberdeen Journals and latterly for The Sun. He vividly remembers the first time he was asked to cover a Dons match for the Green Final:

“It was the 16th March 1974 and the Dons hammered Falkirk 6-0 with Drew Jarvie scoring four including a couple of daisycutters!

“My favourite games through the years were not surprisingly the Super Cup win over Hamburg and the ECWC quarter final win over Bayern Munich earlier in the same year. Both were wonderful nights.”

And in terms of favourite pictures, almost 30 years separates his two picks.

“One was again from 1982 and it was the squad celebrating winning the Scottish Cup at Gleneagles with Burt Lancaster, who was staying at the hotel during the filming of Local Hero. The other was a lot more recent and was Scott Vernon holding up three fingers after celebrating completing his hat-trick after a bit of a goal drought.”

Jamie Langfield's testimonial against Brighton was sadly Donald’s last match as a snapper.
 

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A Real Local Hero

One of Donald’s favourite photos, and ours too, is the pic opposite. A few years back he told RedMatchday about how the photo came about:

The Hollywood legend Burt Lancaster appeared in more than 80 movies over a glittering career on the silver screen. One of his last films was “Field of Dreams”, surely inspired by a meeting with Stewart Kennedy on May 22nd 1982, after the Dons had dragged themselves off their own field of dreams, Hampden Park, to celebrate victory long into the night…

The photo of the two of them was taken at the Gleneagles Hotel where the Dons were celebrating winning the cup after the famous 4-1 win over Rangers. Aberdeen used the Gleneagles Hotel as a regular stop off point for years, even as far back as some of the cup finals in the 1950s.

The team would go down to the hotel on a Friday and if they won the cup would enjoy a good celebration with staff and family on the Saturday night. It was of course at the Gleneagles Hotel where Eddie Turnbull had to stay during the ‘67 final as he never made it to Hampden due to illness.

The photo itself was taken by Donald Stewart. Donald at the time was working as a photographer for The Evening Express and covering the game for the Green Final. He remembers the night well.

“After the game, it was my task to go to Gleneagles and get a photo of the team in their dinner jackets with the Scottish Cup. Unfortunately when I arrived they had already sat down for dinner. When I asked if I could do a photo with the team Alex Ferguson informed me that there had already been a photocall and it was just tough that I had missed it. At which point Stuart Kennedy, who was always a gentleman, stood up and along with his wife picked the cup up from table and said “Come on Donald I will give you a picture”. As we were going through to the front door, Stuart remembered that Burt Lancaster was in the hotel and thought this would make a nice picture! When Stuart eventually found him he was sitting having dinner with the rest of the people working on “Local Hero”.

“Stuart went up to his table, tapped him on the shoulder, and said “Hello, my name is Stuart Kennedy and this is the Scottish Cup!” To Stuart’s amazement Burt knew exactly who he was, about the game and the score. Even although he was halfway through his meal he was delighted to do a photo with Stuart and the cup. So I took the snap with the two of them and Stuart’s wife.

“As I was doing the photo, word of what was going on got back to the Aberdeen table. Before long there were 4 or 5 players, then 6 or 7 and it was not long before the whole team was standing outside in the lobby of the Gleneagles Hotel with Burt! Next thing the door burst opens and Fergie runs out, putting on his dinner jacket shouting wait for me! At which point I politely reminded him that he did not want any more pictures taken!

“Anyway I did a group pic with all the players, Burt, Sir Alex and Stuart’s wife who was still standing there and she was the only poor female in the picture! The group picture was carried on the front page of the Evening Express throughout the day on the Monday and as you can imagine I was very proud of the picture. However if it was not for Stuart I might not have got any pictures that night! He really was a gentleman and great ambassador for the club.”

Stuart Kennedy moved to Pittodrie in 1976 for £30,000 and featured prominently in Aberdeen's greatest period of success. He won every major domestic honour in his time in the North-East – the League Cup in 1976-77, the League in 1979-80, the Scottish Cup in 1981-82. It was tragic that ani njury in the Cup Winners’ Cup semi final prevented Stuart from collecting more honours – this was the only time he got his hands on the Scottish Cup despite the Dons going on to dominate the trophy for the next few years. He was one of the most influential players at the club at the time and his role in the success the club had is often underestimated.

At the time, Burt Lancaster was filming ‘Local Hero’. The film also stared Peter Riegert (more recently in The Sopranos), and our own Denis Lawson, Fulton Mackay, Peter Capaldi and Rikki Fulton. It was filmed in several locations around Scotland, although most of the village scenes were filmed in Pennan on the Aberdeenshire coast. The film’s soundtrack, written by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, arguably become more famous than the film.

Burt Lancaster was one of the greatest movie stars of all time. He sadly passed away after a heart attack at the age of 80, at home in Los Angeles on October 20, 1994. Burt won an Oscar for his performance in “Elmer Gantry”.