The Red Matchday team have been busy this week putting together another bumper programme for our Scottish Cup Round 5 fixture against Queen of the South on Sunday.

We start our preview by speaking to our Graeme Shinnie who talked to us for his Captains Column:

“The Scottish Cup is massive for us. I’ve obviously won it with Inverness, and you can’t beat the feeling of winning a trophy. We always enjoy the cup games, we always want to do well in them, it is a priority for us and today is no different.

“All you can ever ask from the draw is a home tie, so we’re grateful for that, but we know full well that Queen of the South will make it tough. We will have to match them and it is important we play to a high tempo like we did in the second half against Rangers. We have to do everything we can to get through.

“It is a cup tie and form and status goes out the window. Anything can happen on the day – we saw that here in the last round with Stenhousemuir.

“They have had some very good results this season and of course, they beat Dundee in the last round. Stephen Dobbie is having a fantastic season and he and the rest of the Queen of the South players will enjoy playing in front of a big crowd here.

“What we have to do is play the game we want to play, focus on doing the things that we’re good at and do what we can to impose ourselves on the match. It’s a massive 90 minutes with a place in the last eight at stake.”

Our first team player interview is with Tommie Hoban who sat down and spoke to us recently about his career up until now:

“As a player my involvement in the game started with Arsenal.

“I was there from the age of seven. It was amazing. I can’t find anything bad to say about the club. I got released when I was 14 but at the time, it was probably the right decision. It pushed me on. I went to Watford, who are maybe not at the same level, but I thrived at that club and definitely developed as a player.

“It’s a very different club, certainly the last few years, where they’ve changed the manager quite regularly, which is unusual, but has been very successful. I joined Watford in about 2008, and if I compare the club now to the club of ten years ago, it is a completely different place.

“I think I’ve had ten managers since I’ve been there and from the outside, it probably does look strange the way they keep rotating it, but they have a model that is working and for a club like them to get up to the Premiership and still be there four or five years later, it is a massive achievement. And they have not just stayed there, they are flying.”

We look at The Opposition:

Queens-boss Gary Naysmith, who has a past at Pittodrie himself. The Scottish-international fullback spent the 2012-13 season at Pittodrie having been signed Craig Brown, who had previously managed the defender whilst he was Scotland boss.

Naysmith was 33-years-old when he arrived at Pittodrie and it’s fair to say that the best form of his career was behind him at that stage. The 46-times-capped left-back made only 11 appearances in his one season with the Dons as he failed to make the same impact as his fellow 2012 summer signings, Niall McGinn and Jonny Hayes.

It was as player-manager of East Fife that Naysmith cut his teeth in the dugout, after stepping up from being assistant-manager to become Willie Aitchison’s replacement at the League One side. The rookie-manager spent three-and-a-half seasons at Methil before taking the step up to the Championship with Queens in 2016.

Naysmith ended his playing career upon taking up his post at Palmerston and just last week he was rewarded for his side’s good form when he picked up the January Manager-of-the-Month award. It was an award-winning double for Queens in January as striker Stephen Dobbie picked the Player-of-Month award.

Dobbie’s form this season has been nothing short of phenomenal, his hat-trick against Dundee which set up Sundays tie was his fifth of the season and took his scoring tally to an incredible 37 goals for the season.

Our AFC Former Players interview is with a favouirte from not so long ago: 

On Sunday, we welcome back one of our League Cup winners from 2014, midfielder Nicky Low. Nicky will always be remembered very fondly in these parts for his spot kick during the shootout after he appeared as a 70th minute substitute in the final. Nicky took the Dons’ second penalty, at which point we all started to believe it was actually going to happen.

Tremendously popular with Aberdeen’s supporters and staff alike because of his character, attitude, ability and work rate, not to mention his technical ability, he has spent most of his life involved with the club.

“After leaving Pittodrie, I signed a three year deal at Dundee. Unfortunately, my time at Dens was very frustrating because I was injured a lot.

“I then moved to Derry City in Northern Ireland and did very well in my two seasons over there but I decided it was time to come home and try and get a club and kick on again. I had a few options but because I knew Gary Naysmith from our time at Aberdeen together, I thought I would sign for Queen of the South. We will then see what happens at the end of the season.

“During my time in Northern Ireland, I got everything I wanted from it. I wanted to go and get a fresh start and face a new challenge. I will be honest and say I became a bit disillusioned with the game after my time at Dundee. I was injured a lot and I was not enjoying my football, so I decided I needed to try something new. I went over to Derry and thankfully, the fans took to me. I did really well and I think everyone over there appreciated that. The move could not have gone better.

“The main thing was that I was playing with a smile on my face again. Anyone that knows me know how important that is for me. I was enjoying training and going to play matches. It had been a while since I had done that. I fell in love with the game again.”

Our Developing Dons feature has played against Queen of the South this season:

Not content with the one, the Dons have another big Sam from England who is enjoying a very fine season…

Young Sam Roscoe has been at Alloa Athletic on a season-long loan and the 20 year old defender has done a brilliant job for Jim Goodwin’s side as they try to defy all the odds and stay in the Championship.

The 6’ 5” centre back gave us a bit of insight into today’s opponents.

“We have played Queen of the South twice now. Down there, we went 3-0 up within 30 minutes. Then we got hit by a Stephen Dobbie hat-trick and it finished 3-3. More recently, we played them at home when Dobbie was out injured, and won 2-0, with both goals coming in the second half. It was quite a tight game, but we got a second in injury time to seal a very good win for us.

“We have had good games against them and got positive results both times. When you have someone like Dobbie in the side it makes a big difference. Sometimes he will go 20 or 30 minutes and you will not notice he is there and then suddenly he will pick it up 30 yards out and stick it in the top corner. Players like that are so valuable to a team. He works hard but it is his goals that make him so special. The day he scored the hat-trick, I think he had four shots and the other one hit the post! You have to make sure you are always on your game because if you give him a yard, he will score.

“Each week, I am playing against good players such as Dobbie, Lawrence Shankland at Ayr, and Dundee United have spent a lot of money in January. For me personally, to have played every game, I would like to think I have improved as a player. Hopefully it has been noticed how well I am doing, not just at Alloa but up here as well.

Columnists this weekend include Chris Crighton:

Our visitors on Sunday are, famously, proud of the factoid that their football club is mentioned in the Bible.

It is a triviality that this reference is, by definition, coincidental, given that the book in question was written several centuries before the game was even invented, let alone played by the denizens of Dumfries; history having happened before the club claiming it was even founded would not be considered a logic failure in the realms of Scottish football.

Less well known to the public at large, perhaps, is the fact that this seemingly peculiar name for a fitba team was bestowed upon what might otherwise have been plain old Dumfries United not as a result of the phrase’s appearance in the gospels, but rather its use in a speech given by a local poet, David Dunbar, during his campaign for election to Parliament. With literary flourish, he referred to the constituency of Dumfries, this relatively remote Scottish outpost, as “the Queen of the South”, a moniker which caught the imagination of the townsfolk sufficiently to enter the local vernacular, if not enough to return the poor chap to Westminster. Better off out of it, mate.

Aberdeen v Queen of the South in the Scottish Cup

4th Mar 1939	Aberdeen 2:0 QOS	Q Final	Pittodrie	Pattillo 2	34,950
11th Mar 1950	QOS 3 :3 Aberdeen	Q Final	Palmerston	Yorston 2, Pearson	12,000
25th Mar 1950	Aberdeen 1:2 QOS	Q Final Rep	Pittodrie	Hamilton	32,000
25th Jan 2003	QOS 0:0 Aberdeen	Rnd 3	Palmerston		5,716
18th Feb 2003	Aberdeen 4:1 QOS	Rnd 3 Rep	Pittodrie	D’Jaffo 2, Young, Anderson	6,150
12th Apr 2008	Aberdeen 3:4 QOS	Semi Final	Hampden	Considine 2, Nicholson	24,008
4th Feb 2012	Aberdeen 1:1 QOS	Rnd 5	Pittodrie	Vernon	6,785
14th Feb 2012	QOS 1:2 Aberdeen	Rnd 5 Rep	Palmerston	Fyvie, Considine	3,102

We look back at all the previous fixtures:

Aberdeen first came up against Queen of the South in the Scottish Cup away back in March 1939, just when the world was about to go to war. Jock Pattillo was perhaps an unlucky Aberdeen player as he was just coming to his prime leading the Aberdeen front line when the events in Europe curtailed his competitive career. Pattillo went on to become a prolific scorer for the club during the war years in the various league and cup competitions that were hastily arranged. It was on the 4th March 1939 that Pattillo scored two sensational goals to knock Queen of the South out of the cup in a tense Pittodrie quarter final. Pattillo was given a standing ovation as he left the field after the Black & Gold’s 2-0 win. His performance was all the more remarkable considering he was brave enough to carry on following a nasty head clash with Queens’ Watson after only ten minutes.

and yes even that one….

columnist Stuart Duff

I was also involved in the infamous semi-final in 2008. I was on the bench that day. 

I will always wonder if I could have gone on and changed the game and changed the course of history. It was so topsy-turvy, a freakish game.

Everyone just expected Aberdeen to go on and win the game, probably including us, but Queen of the South made it very difficult on the day. They thoroughly deserved to go through to the final.

Looking back now, I still can’t put my finger on what went wrong. There were four or five changes made to our team that day and it did not work out for us at all.

They had a much better team that people realised. A number of their players went on to have good careers in England and they had some good professionals who had played at a good level in Scotland.
We maybe took our eye off the ball, thinking it was only Queen of the South. I think that had to be a factor. We were looking towards the final instead of the game in front of us. It’s different now. Most managers have their teams a lot better drilled so they have a stronger mentality and they will be prepared for any game.

Finally Sunday’s retro cover by Dolly Digital is inspired from the 1970 Cup Final Programme. We look back at what was happening in the world back then as well as the Dons famous cup run.

Red Matchday Issue 18 |

to buy a copy online please click here

Red Matchday Magazine is available to buy in and around the ground from the programme sellers for £3.00.

You can pick up a copy from the AFC Club Shop from Saturday and if you can’t make the match you can pick a copy by clicking on the link above.

As always, we welcome your comments and feedback on the programme this season. Please feel free to get in touch with the editor (Malcolm Panton) at redtv@afc.co.uk