Scottish Cup R5 | Red Matchday Special

The Red Matchday team have put together a Scottish Cup special for this weekend. Thanks to Dolly Digital for another brilliant cover!

It’s been a season of milestones for Andrew Considine and, fitness and selection permitting, Saturday will see him edging closer to another – a half century of Scottish Cup games for the Dons.

This will be number 43 for Andrew and, hopefully, there’ll be still more to come this term and in seasons to come. That’s all for the future of course. For now, we thought the time was right to ask him which of those Scottish Cup games sticks out the most in his memory …

PIC DEREK IRONSIDE / NEWSLINE MEDIA

“To have played 42 games in the Scottish Cup is a lot – that’s a season’s worth of football! There have been some great days and some pretty low points in amongst them, but a few of them do stand out of course.

“Probably the freshest in my memory is the one we won down at Rangers last season. It shouldn’t have gone to that replay to be fair, because I remember I should have put the game to bed at Pittodrie when I had a great chance, a free header when it was 1-1. That was pretty frustrating at the time, but it turned out that it set us up for a special night.

“The game down at Ibrox was incredible. We scored right at the start. Through Niall, then it was backs to the wall for the majority of it. Saying that though, similar to the game last weekend, Joe didn’t have that many saves to make because we defended really well. Then every time we did counterattack, we did it to great effect and I felt we could score more goals. Stevie May was outstanding up front for us that night, because Sam was missing. We scored two good goals, the second one from Connor was really the icing on the cake and gave us a bit of breathing space in the last 25 minutes or so.

“We’ve had some good wins at Celtic in the Scottish Cup. I remember going and winning 2-1 there in the cup the week after we’d beaten St Johnstone 4-0 at Hampden to get to the League Cup final. They started well, and scored early on, but we came back into it and Russell Anderson got us level before half-time. Peter Pawlett got a goal just after the break and we held on and won that one too – that was some week!

“Maybe the most memorable of all the Scottish Cup games was the semi-final against Hibs in 2017. We had such a fantastic start, 2-0 up after about 25 minutes, Adam Rooney and Ryan Christie scored, but then we had a bit of a wobble and got pegged back to 2-2 – Dylan McGeouch got one of the goals for them.

“When that happens in a game, especially a huge game like a cup semi-final, it really tests your character and people were expecting them to maybe go on and win from there. But we got back into it and late on, Jonny Hayes had a shot that was deflected in and we won the game. Obviously, it was meant to be for us that day and in the cup, you do need that bit of luck somewhere along the line. In the league, if you lose a game where you’ve been unlucky or played badly, you can put things right next week. You can’t do that in the cup so you do need luck on your side at times, however good you are.”

Russell Anderson (centre) is mobbed by his team mates after equalisng for Aberdeen

… If you had to guess the Dons’ top appearance makers in the Scottish Cup, pretty well every member of the Red Army would be able to name the two men at the head of the list – Miller and McLeish, of course.

But on this occasion, it’s McLeish and Miller that we should be talking about, in that order, because it’s Alex who comes out on top of the pile with 69 Scottish Cup appearances to Willie’s 66, while Alex also collected five cup winner’s medals to Willie’s four.

We look at the top 20 list.

Also we look back at all the previous Scottish Cup ties between Aberdeen and Kilmarnock on eleven occasions. The Dons have won seven and four have been drawn, leading to a number of famous replays. RedMatchday looks back at all these games …

… You can imagine the reaction that some managers in the modern era would be if they were faced with their team having to play three gruelling cup-ties in five days.

The Dons Scottish Cup campaign in 1969 was in stark contrast to a desperate and inconsistent season in the league. Aberdeen eased past Berwick who famously dumped Rangers out of the cup in 1967. Next up were cup holders Dunfermline who were probably in the midst of their best ever period. The Scottish Cup holders were well placed in the league and also through to the last four of the European Cup Winners Cup. In the first clash at Pittodrie, a last minute goal from the visitors stunned Aberdeen. With both teams facing a home quarter final tie on Saturday 1st March, the replay at East End Park came only 24 hours after the Pittodrie tie on Wednesday 26th February. The general belief was that Aberdeen’s best chance had gone but two Dave Robb goals sent Aberdeen through to the last eight to stun the holders.

Aberdeen had little time to prepare for the visit of Kilmarnock and the same Dons line up that beat Dunfermline were asked to get Aberdeen through to the semi-final. Kilmarnock were also enjoying a successful period on the back of their league title in 1965 they had become regular campaigners in European football. Aberdeen were evolving into a cup side of real quality but despite dominating for long periods they could not find a way through the Ayrshire defence. In what was a real game of attrition, Kilmarnock seemed happy to take the tie to a second game. The nearest opportunity came when Johnston’s effort came back off the bar. While the likes of Jimmy Smith tried to show his class, his efforts were thwarted by the close attentions of the Kilmarnock defenders.

Four days later in what was the Dons fourth cup-tie in nine days, the replay was a classic Aberdeen away performance of the time as a tough resolute defence stood firm and Aberdeen picked off Kilmarnock with relative ease. Goals from Dave Robb, Tommy Craig and Jim Hamilton sent Aberdeen through to the semi-final after an impressive 3-0 win that stunned the Rugby Park side.

Aberdeen’s Tommy Craig hugs Jim Forrest at Rugby Park after slamming home the second goal against Kilmarnock. And as he sees the Scottish Cup semi-final against Rangers come closer Jim Hamilton leaps for joy. Hamilton himself was to make it three for the Dons five minutes before they marched off the pitch. 5 March 1969.

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