Cup Genius From Stavrum as Leighton Took Premature Bow
By Ian Thomson

The 1999-2000 season could well have featured the worst league campaign in Aberdeen’s history. Ebbe Skovdahl’s side waited seven games to score a goal. They picked up their first point after eight games and waited another couple before registering a win. League reconstruction spared the Dons from a relegation scrap despite finishing rock bottom with 33 points from 36 games. There were 21 defeats and a staggering 83 goals conceded.

Yet somehow Skovdahl guided the club to both cup finals that year with a series of improbable results. A Scottish Cup semifinal against Hibernian at Hampden Park in April 2000 saw Arild Stavrum building his cult hero status with a stroke of sheer genius to settle a game that stands out to me for many reasons.

I was at an age where personal independence, increasing career commitments and life priorities were altering the way I supported the Dons. The search for a new job and first apartment were under way while old friends had been displaced through their work or ambitions. Scottish football was also in an age where supporters’ rituals were being obliterated by the demands of broadcasters. Hence this tie between teams from Aberdeen and Edinburgh taking place in Glasgow. On a Sunday. At 6:05 p.m.

We should never have been near Hampden that year given our largely abject form. We’d struggled past Livingston in the League Cup before ousting Falkirk on penalties. Andy Dow’s last-gasp quarterfinal winner averted another shootout after 41-year-old Jim Leighton produced a performance for the ages to frustrate Rangers. Stavrum converted Hicham Zerouali’s cross-shot in the semifinal against Dundee United at Dens Park before Celtic ended our first cup run.

Our Scottish Cup campaign was another test of attrition. Zerouali’s 40-yard thunderbolt at Love Street rescued a replay in our opening round. It took another second attempt at Pittodrie to edge past Inverness, and Eoin Jess settled the quarterfinal at Dundee United after another amazing afternoon from the evergreen Leighton. One of the good guys was surely scripted for a fitting career send-off, one final Hampden tilt against Rangers, if only we could oust a Hibs team managed by fellow Gothenburg Great Alex McLeish.

The traveling Red Army was decimated by the inconvenient kickoff. None of my regular away day companions were making the trip and I ended up driving with a couple of work colleagues. We soon found that we had the freedom of the stands with about 5,000 Dandies occupying half of the stadium. Far larger numbers came from Edinburgh, and we feared the worst when Russell Latapy broke the deadlock early in the second half to spark up a tremendous din from the green-and-white end.

Our resolve in the cups soon resurfaced. We equalized barely five minutes later when Stavrum netted a rebound after Dow’s initial shot was saved. That sparked pandemonium in the Dons end as hundreds of wannabe Colin Jacksons hurdled down 20 rows of empty seats to celebrate at pitch level adjacent to the players. We’d barely regained our spot midway up the stand, in line with the 18-yard box that Aberdeen were attacking, when Stavrum peeled beyond the far post to offer a deep crossing option to his Norwegian countryman Cato Guntveit.

What followed was a moment of sporting greatness to rival the feathery touch of John McEnroe at the Wimbledon net or Jack Nicklaus on the approach to a St. Andrews green. Stavrum cushioned a volley between two defenders toward the edge of the penalty area. It was delivered with the perfect weight and height for the arriving Dow to smash a right-foot shot high into Nick Colgan’s net before the goalkeeper could react. We were off hurdling the seats again.

I’ll never forget Leighton’s expressions at fulltime when the Dons players came over to applaud the Red Army. He was filled with adrenaline, screaming and punching the air, as his emotions at reaching one last final poured into the Hampden night. That fitting career send-off for a Scottish football legend was happening after all.

Or so we thought.

Ian Thomson is a journalist and exiled Dons fan based in Washington, D.C. Follow him on Twitter at @SoccerObserver.