Welcome to December. The month where every morning you open your advent calendar, and every evening you head out to watch the Dons. Well not quite, but it certainly feels like it.   Tonight, with less than a week’s worth of misshapen reindeer made of cheap cooking chocolate digested (presuming you’re all being good and nae skipping ahead), here we are for what is already the second Aberdeen match of the month; by the time the bells sound to send December on its way the Reds will, weather permitting, have been in action a further six times. It is a strange league indeed which employs what it refers to as a “winter break”, yet still asks its members to play eight matches in the month of December. The thermometer is indicating quite decisively that this is winter, and that’s not exactly what you’d call a break.   Though UK football has its traditions in terms of festive fixtures, and the matches in the days between Christmas and January 2 generally attract some of the highest crowds of the year, it’s tough on everyone to be packing so many other games into the first three weeks of the month.   It’s tough on the players, who will be going weekend/midweek/repeat from now to New Year, having sat largely idle for much of November. Over the next three weeks Aberdeen will cram six matches into exactly the same timespan over which, between the trip to Firhill and the League Cup final, they played just once. It’s hardly ideally suited to the sort of consistent routine required in the preparation of elite professional athletes, and playing more than one-fifth of the league campaign in 27 days – in these low temperatures with almost no opportunity for proper training in between – is a recipe for muscle injuries.   It’s tough on fans, who already have enough going out of their bank accounts this month without being asked to travel over a thousand miles getting to – and then paying in to see – their team’s December fixtures. Even a single adult attending home games only will be stumping up almost a hundred quid, so in all the families of fanatics across the region Auntie Doris shouldn’t hold out much hope for an expensive Christmas present this year. She’ll be lucky to get a card, scribbled out in a spare moment during half-time in Dingwall.   It’s also tough on pitches. Grass, quite simply, does not grow in Scotland at this time of year; the care which groundsmen will take for their pitches between now and March will be palliative at best. If they are taking this level of punishment on the surface, and all the while their roots are being grilled by megawatts of undersoil heating, we’re going to be playing the bulk of the season on parks which are sub-optimal and which have lost the capacity to properly regenerate once Spring finally comes around. That’s not great for the quality of the spectacle, and nor is every pound subsequently spent on grass seed and turf rolls which could instead have gone towards the improvement of a Scottish game in which Grant Hanley has been the best available central defender 27 times and counting.   At least it will be good for the energy companies, what with the heating coils glowing red hot beneath the ground and the floodlights dazzling above it throughout December’s dark days and nights. Anything which helps oil and gas companies generate income right now can’t be bad for Aberdeen’s depressed economy, eh.   And a few quickfire wins wouldn’t go amiss in refloating the spirits of Aberdeen’s depressed football supporters after the Hampden slump either. So let’s embrace the chaos – I mean, what else are you going to be doing at this time of year anyway?

Welcome to December. The month where every morning you open your advent calendar, and every evening you head out to watch the Dons. Well not quite, but it certainly feels like it.   Tonight, with less than a week’s worth of misshapen reindeer made of cheap cooking chocolate digested (presuming you’re all being good and nae skipping ahead), here we are for what is already the second Aberdeen match of the month; by the time the bells sound to send December on its way the Reds will, weather permitting, have been in action a further six times. It is a strange league indeed which employs what it refers to as a “winter break”, yet still asks its members to play eight matches in the month of December. The thermometer is indicating quite decisively that this is winter, and that’s not exactly what you’d call a break.   Though UK football has its traditions in terms of festive fixtures, and the matches in the days between Christmas and January 2 generally attract some of the highest crowds of the year, it’s tough on everyone to be packing so many other games into the first three weeks of the month.   It’s tough on the players, who will be going weekend/midweek/repeat from now to New Year, having sat largely idle for much of November. Over the next three weeks Aberdeen will cram six matches into exactly the same timespan over which, between the trip to Firhill and the League Cup final, they played just once. It’s hardly ideally suited to the sort of consistent routine required in the preparation of elite professional athletes, and playing more than one-fifth of the league campaign in 27 days – in these low temperatures with almost no opportunity for proper training in between – is a recipe for muscle injuries.   It’s tough on fans, who already have enough going out of their bank accounts this month without being asked to travel over a thousand miles getting to – and then paying in to see – their team’s December fixtures. Even a single adult attending home games only will be stumping up almost a hundred quid, so in all the families of fanatics across the region Auntie Doris shouldn’t hold out much hope for an expensive Christmas present this year. She’ll be lucky to get a card, scribbled out in a spare moment during half-time in Dingwall.   It’s also tough on pitches. Grass, quite simply, does not grow in Scotland at this time of year; the care which groundsmen will take for their pitches between now and March will be palliative at best. If they are taking this level of punishment on the surface, and all the while their roots are being grilled by megawatts of undersoil heating, we’re going to be playing the bulk of the season on parks which are sub-optimal and which have lost the capacity to properly regenerate once Spring finally comes around. That’s not great for the quality of the spectacle, and nor is every pound subsequently spent on grass seed and turf rolls which could instead have gone towards the improvement of a Scottish game in which Grant Hanley has been the best available central defender 27 times and counting.   At least it will be good for the energy companies, what with the heating coils glowing red hot beneath the ground and the floodlights dazzling above it throughout December’s dark days and nights. Anything which helps oil and gas companies generate income right now can’t be bad for Aberdeen’s depressed economy, eh.   And a few quickfire wins wouldn’t go amiss in refloating the spirits of Aberdeen’s depressed football supporters after the Hampden slump either. So let’s embrace the chaos – I mean, what else are you going to be doing at this time of year anyway?