GLORY OF GOTHENBURG (2003)

 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DONS 1903 -1983

 

Over twenty-six years ago, on the 11th May 1983 Aberdeen Football Club won the European Cup-Winner's Cup at the Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg, Sweden.  Their opponents were the mighty European giants Real Madrid.  The game is considered to be the greatest night in the golden age of Aberdeen Football Club. 

 

The club had come a long way from their origins in 1903 as a provincial club in the North-East of Scotland.  Aberdeen supporters had to wait twenty years for the club to win a trophy but it was in the 1960s under the stewardship of Eddie Turnbull that the team began to taste European Football and real success.  Turnbull left Aberdeen for Hibernian in the 1971 but had led them to second in the league that year and had won the Scottish Cup with them in 1970.  His successors, one-time assistant Jimmy Bonthrone, Ally MacLeod (who went on to become Scotland manager) and Billy McNeil had worked hard to build on his foundations but it didn't look like the club would improve on what Turnbull had done at the end of the 1960s.  All that changed in 1978 with the arrival of Alex Ferguson.

 

Originally from Govan in Glasgow, Ferguson was originally an apprentice tool-maker in the Glasgow shipyards and was also a shop steward for the trade unions.  He had enjoyed a varied professional football career in the 1960s and 70s playing for the likes of Queen's Park, Dunfermline and eventually Rangers.  It is one of the ironies of Aberdeen Football Club that their greatest ever manager was once a 'Hunn' as Glasgow team Rangers are one of Aberdeen's most bitter rivals, with turbulent clashes on and off the pitch.

 

Ferguson wasn't slow to make his mark.  He quickly disposed of older players including Drew Jarvie and fan favourite Joe Harper.  He developed the club's youth system whereby he sought and nurtured younger players, mentoring them closely.  Among the players to come through this system were Eric Black, Gordon Strachan and John Hewitt.  Fergie's firebrand temperament and uncompromising nature quickly earned the nickname 'Furious Fergie'.  He brooked no challenge to his authority, was very demanding and once kicked a tea urn at his players after a poor first-half as well as (unbelievably) fining John Hewitt for over-taking him on a public road.

 

His style, though, began to pay dividends.  With Ferguson in charge, in 1980 Aberdeen won the Scottish Premier Division, becoming the first team in fifteen years other than Rangers or Celtic to win it.  In 1982 they won the Scottish Cup, seeing them qualify for entry into the European Cup-Winner's Cup. 

 

After an 11-1 thumping of Sion in the opening round, Aberdeen made it all the way to the quarter-final against Bayern Munich.  The first leg saw Aberdeen earn a draw with the Germans at the Allianz stadium in Munich and the return leg at Pittodrie Stadium in Aberdeen is now widely regarded as one of the greatest games ever played there.  Despite a goal from Neil Simpson, Aberdeen were behind 2-1.  In the second half, a foul from the Germans in their own box saw John McMaster and Gordon Strachan take a free kick.  They both went for the ball, appeared to miss and started arguing before Strachan caught Bayern off-guard by punting the ball into their goal area as Alex McLeish awaited to head it in.  A few minutes later Aberdeen were on the attack again as the Bayern keeper parried a strike only for the ball to fall at the feet of John Hewitt, who sliced the ball between the keeper's legs to see Aberdeen secure a 3-2 victory.

 

After demolishing Belgian team Waterschei in the semi-finals, Aberdeen were on their way to Sweden.  Their opponents would be the Spanish legends Real Madrid.  A ferry carted the majority of Aberdeen fans from the port at Aberdeen Harbour to Gothenburg and drunken merriment quickly ensued as the fans prepared for what would probably be the most memorable evening of their lives.  For those who couldn't afford to go, the game was being broadcast on TV and many Aberdonians stayed tuned to watch the match either at home or at the pub, the latter being something of a novelty at the time.

 

At any rate, the game started well for the Dons with Eric Black's strike seeing the Dons lead 1-0.  Unfortunately Jim Leighton illegally brought down a Madrid player inside the Aberdeen box, and the resulting penalty saw the Spaniards level 1-1.  The scores remained at this deadlock for the rest of the game and eventually things went into extra-time.  Within this period, Ferguson took off Eric Black and brought on John Hewitt.  The first half of extra time went goalless but the second half saw Mark McGhee, aided by a chip from Peter Weir, make an attack on the Madrid box, mercilessly flanked by an opposing winger.  Watching from the stands, Ferguson spied John Hewitt making his way into the Madrid goal area, doing so in a parallel line.  This inflamed Ferguson as Hewitt had been instructed repeatedly to bend his run in order to avoid defenders.  Ferguson was screaming blue murder at Hewitt when McGhee sent the ball towards the goal area.  The panicking Madrid keeper came out far too early, and was unable to stop Hewitt heading the ball into the back of the net.  The score was now 2-1 to Aberdeen. 

 

The Dons fans sensed victory, but Madrid nearly levelled with a free kick awarded in Aberdeen's half.  Nerves were frayed as the kick was sent into the goal area before flying past the Aberdeen post, missing the goal.  A few seconds letter, the final whistle was blown.  In Gothenburg and back home in Aberdeen, celebrations abounded.  The fans went on a drinking spree that lasted into the early hours and well beyond.  Everyone was ecstatic and rightly so.  This was the greatest moment in the history of Aberdeen Football Club.  There hadn't been, and probably never would be, another night quite like it.

 

TWENTY YEARS LATER

 

In the spring of 2003, I was at my wits end.  I was approaching the final days of my third year at Robert Gordon's University, where I had been studying Publishing.  As well as my studies, I had taken on a part-time job in a burger bar as well as two shows, "An American in Powis" with Aberdeen Student Show and "Zorba" with Attic.  Student Show, with it's 12-hour-a-day rehearsal schedule, nearly killed me with everything else I had taken on.  I was mentally exhausted by the time all this was over.  Apart from a fortnight in Edinburgh learning standup, my summer was going to be very barren and restful.

 

Then, around about June, I received an envelope through my front door.  Inside it was a script entitled "Glory of Gothenburg".  It was a musical about Aberdeen's Gothenburg victory.  The script had a Post-It note attached: "Alain, I would like you to play Chris in this show if possible, DJ." 

 

David "DJ" Johnstone was a friend of mine on the Aberdeen theatre scene and had directed me in a number of shows for Attic Theatre.  I first met him in 1999, when I auditioned for "FAME", with Attic Theatre.  I had an atrocious musical audition, but I then I read the script. "Well you certainly know the dialogue", DJ remarked.  Not many would have overlooked the poor singing, but he did and I got a role.  I got parts in all his shows, so it should have been no surprise to me that I'd got one here. 

 

The Gothenburg script was the result of a collaboration between him and Graeme Watson, a former workmate of his who now lived in Inverness.  Graeme was a massive Aberdeen fan and had persuaded DJ (who knew nothing about football) to do this show.  He had written an original script and combined it with popular music from the early 1980s, as well as some local Aberdeen songs.  Graeme originally planned the show to take place in May to coincide exactly with when Aberdeen won the trophy.  Unfortunately problems securing the rights to do the music shifted the production date back to September. 

 

The production was done under Graeme's name - GRW Enterprises and was comprised of people mainly drawn from Attic Theatre and associated groups.  The first reading of the show took place later that June in a hotel just opposite the Lemon Tree.  Rehearsals got underway soon after at Linksfield Academy, which was situated a goal kick away from Pittodrie Stadium.  The production was set for September 2003 at the Aberdeen Arts Centre. 

 

The plot was basically about three brothers, all Dons supporters, who follow the team to Gothenburg, falling in love along the way.  I was to play Chris, the quieter of the two brothers and two other local actors Jack Christie (no relation to Scott) and Ricky Garden given the parts of my more outgoing elder siblings.  Although older than me, Jack and Ricky were relatively new to the Aberdeen scene.  Not that this mattered in any case, as the three of us developed a quick-witted banter through rehearsals and this informed much of what we did on-stage.  Between us, we took Graeme's script and polished it up, added lines and various physical flourishes that made it come alive.  We did go a little overboard with the swearing and obscenity but it was all in keeping with the spirit of the piece.  Our personalities off-stage informed our characters on it.  Jack was the oldest and strongest of the three of us, Ricky was the wittiest and most outrageous and I was shy and introspective. 

 

As well as musical numbers and Aberdeen banter, the show involved plenty of audience participation, using video footage and mock-up stadium stands to recreate actual matches from the quarter-final in Pittodrie to the final at the Ullevi in Gothenburg.  The audience were invited to take part in cheering on the team at these moments and at a crucial point in the second half, the three brothers stood in front of the curtains and named everyone of the Cup-Winning squad to anticipated reactions from the crowd.

 

Graeme lived in Inverness and only visited occasionally but didn't seem too annoyed that we had revised and made changes to some areas of his script.  In fact he seemed to like what was taking place and encouraged us. 

 

We had the backing of local newspapers and Aberdeen Football Club itself.  The Evening Express, a local paper, covered us in the run-up to production and it's sports editor even made an appearance with a replica of the Cup-Winner's Cup trophy, which we posed with for the sports pages.  DJ's assistant, another Attic regular called Kenny, appeared at Aberdeen home games at Pittodrie dressed up as their mascot Angus the Bull. 

 

Our dancers and choreographer were from Redz and Co, Aberdeen Football Club's own cheerleading squad.  They were very good dancers and capable of feats that wowed audiences, drawing applause at performances.  I was working with one of these dancers doing "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This" (by Eurythmics) and my jaw hit the floor as she bent over backwards, her head disappearing under her shoulders as her spine apparently made a U-shape.  My gasps of shock drew laughter from the others.

 

I had no real problems doing this show but my worries, as ever, lay with my singing.  I had only one solo musical number and this was "Too Shy", originally sung by Kajagoogoo.  I learned the lyrics but after one rendition I walked away muttering "Well THAT was 'Too Shite'".

 

By and large we supplied our own costumes, excepting the Aberdeen shirts which were bought specially.  Our Eighties hairpieces were wildly over-the-top and were hard to keep tidy.  I can't say we were wholly accurate in our period detail, but we seemed to capture the essence and feel of that time, and that's what mattered.

 

DJ always maintained a tight ship, remained highly efficient and organised, and under his guidance we eventually made it to the Arts Centre and encountered another thing that made "Glory of Gothenburg" unique: it's audience: our show attracted people who had never been to the Arts Centre before and would probably never go there again.  I thought the audience were what really made this show special.  These were real, rough-and-ready football fans -  the kind that paid every year for a season ticket and roared on Aberdeen week in, week out.  They were happy to fill out the Arts Centre and revisit the glory days.

 

A polite pre-show announcement from Kenny that "this show contains adult language and rude gestures" was greeted with cheers and yells of delight.  Two actors playing Rangers supporters were greeted with near-endless boo-ing as they came on-stage.  It was a wonderfully theatrical reaction and when I heard it off-stage I nearly died laughing.  It was in the match scenes, though, that this show really took off.  As the rest of us sat in the mock-up stands to watch the final played on the back wall, we started cheering and behind us the audience cheered along.  The roars of thunder from both cast and audience made it seem like a real football match and was enough to lift the roof clean off the theatre.

 

The fans enjoyed themselves and this became contagious, the barrier between audience and cast seemed to vanish.  At times we just threw the script out of the window and improvised to interact better with the audience who responded even to our mistakes with the strongest enthusiasm.  One or two of the Gothenburg squad came to see the show. 

 

I will never forget the first night as we went through the names of all the Gothenburg players.  We got about mid-way through them when Jack paused, leaned back then thrust a pointing finger out into the audience screaming "Johnny Hewitt!!!".  Sure enough 'Super-sub" John Hewitt, the man off whose head bounced the ball that made Aberdeen history, was seated in the front rows with his family.  The audience roared in response and I saw John laughing, shaking his head.

 

Seeing John Hewitt in the bar afterwards, I was very eager to talk to him.  I had done a lot of research into Aberdeen Football Club over the summer, reading books,studying websites and Kenny had lent me a double-disc DVD that outlined the history of Aberdeen Football Club and featured a single disc containing the whole of that famous final against Real Madrid.  Despite having no interest in football, I followed the fortunes of Sir Alex Ferguson after he won the Treble with Manchester United in 1999.  I shared some common heritage with him (both our fathers had worked on the Clyde shipyards - my dad in Clydebank, Fergie's in Govan).  Armed with all this information, I had a lot to ask John.  Jack introduced us and I asked John what was it that made Fergie Fergie. "A will to win" said John "You were a winner with Fergie, or you were out the door".  He was quick to confirm that "all the stories about him are true."  John had been recruited by Fergie to the Dons squad when he was only 16. After leaving Aberdeen in 1987, John enjoyed spells with Celtic and St Mirren and was now back in Aberdeen working for local recruitment firm Team and Tulloch.  He stressed to me that he had worked hard to move on with his life and that you couldn't live in the past.  Nevertheless he felt it was nice for him to acknowledge his part in the football club's history and celebrate with the fans. 

 

Neil Simpson, who scored in the quarter-final against Bayern Munich, came along to see us during the run.  We saw him in the bar afterwards.  Neil was still involved in football and worked for the Dons as a youth coach and he was a very amiable bloke.

 

When the final curtain came down on "Glory of Gothenburg" in Aberdeen, we could not have been happier.  It was a stonking show, attracted a whole different audience to the Arts Centre and connected with them in a very unique way.  

 

THE ROAD TO EDINBURGH

 

A couple of months later we saw the DVD recording of the show, and I later kicked myself for missing a Tiffany concert to go and see it.  Although it must have looked great live, the show did not, to my mind, look great onscreen and the DVD highlighted a number of embarassing gaffes. 

 

After we saw the DVD, most of us forgot about "Gothenburg" for a while.  I went back to my studies, did a Shakespeare play in November and then joined DJ and Kenny in Attic Pantomime "Dick Whittington", playing the villain.  After Christmas, I planned to take six months off theatre to complete my degree and gave no thought to any more shows.

 

In a way, the summer we rehearsed "Gothenburg" had been kind of a preparation for me in what it might be like as a professional performer.  Working in the Burger King job, I saw plenty of old faces from the past moving up and on with their lives, doing real jobs and having families.  My AS hadn't fully gone away despite my knowledge of it, and both my condition and my theatre compulsion had me wondering, doing this dead-end job, exactly where my life was leading. 

 

Then around about December 2003, there were whispers in the theatre scene of taking "Glory of Gothenburg" to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2004.  I talked with Kenny about it during rehearsals for panto and we both dismissed it as an idle rumour.  It was a very hard to take a show to Edinburgh, and the idea, we agreed, would never get off the ground. 

 

Then around about January, Graeme sent out a mass email to everyone involved in the show.  We were all summoned to a meeting in the Broadhill Bar across the road from Pittodrie Stadium.  It was noon on Saturday, and the pub was very quiet.  It felt a little bit conspiratorial meeting like this, like we were bank robbers planning some ambitious, impossible heist.  Yet the secrecy was necessary at the time.  DJ did not want anyone to start talking about an Edinburgh show until it was certain it was going to happen.  In the darkened room in the pub, Graeme told us of his plans for the show and then he and DJ were given the lowdown of the logistics of taking the set and lighting equipment to Edinburgh, and the time scale necessary to set-up, rehearse and perform.  Get-ins (that is getting set and lighting into the theatre) and get-outs needed to be done between individual performances, as we would most likely be sharing a venue and performance space with other groups.

 

We were short of funds so the cast organised a couple of fundraising events, including a five-aside football game and a parachuting jumping event.  After the meeting, we didn't hear a lot from DJ and Graeme until about June, a few months before the show took place.  Whenever I talked to Graeme he was absolutely insistent "it is going ahead, it is going ahead".  Graeme and DJ had come to an agreement when handling the show:  DJ would remain in charge of the production and Graeme would be responsible for getting it to Edinburgh, securing the venue as well as cast and crew accommodation.

 

As we all knew the show pretty well, minimal rehearsal was required to get us all up to speed.  Jack was friends with former Dons captain Willie Miller, and Willie had suggested a couple of things that we used to revise the script.  In the opening present-day sequence, where the three brothers are in Pittodrie stands talking about the good old days, we made reference to local Edinburgh teams Hibernian and Hearts.  In the 1980s Aberdeen had formed what later became known as the 'New Firm' in Scottish football with Dundee United, as opposed to the 'Old Firm' of Rangers and Celtic. 

 

There were also references to the Aberdeen team itself that needed to be changed.  In 2003, Aberdeen were managed by Steve Paterson and despite notable wins over Celtic and Kilmarnock, had finished second-bottom of the league.  This poor run of form naturally had fans hankering for the glory days and while they couldn't have Alex Ferguson return, the local press mounted a campaign to bring Willie Miller back to Pittodrie.  Willie Miller was the club captain during Ferguson's reign and had retired from professional football in 1990. He went on to manage Aberdeen in 1992.  His three year spell in charge was not successful and he was sacked in 1995.  We'd made a joke about this in the show "Willie Miller - the best player in the world and when he retires - he'll be Aberdeen's best manager after Fergie".  This gag got some of the biggest laughs in the show's first run. 

 

After being sacked, Miller remained in Aberdeen and made his name as a local businessman, including running Harry Ramsden's Fish and Chip restaurant down the Beach Boulevard.  At the end of the 2003-2004 season, Miller returned to Pittodrie, nine years after his departure.  He was given an executive post - director of football operations.  One of his first actions in his new role was to fire incumbent manager Steve Paterson.  Paterson was replaced by Glasgow man, and Dunfermline manager, Jimmy Calderwood.  Our new line in the opening scene was "With Willie Miller and the Sun-Tan Man [Calderwood] at our back, this could be our best season in years".  This turned out to be true in the end, and Calderwood brought the most consistent results in some time for Aberdeen Football Club.

 

Around about early July, about a month before we were due to perform, a number of us went on ahead down to Edinburgh to check out the venue.  We were set to perform in a place called the DeMarco Roxy Art House, just off Roxburgh Street, a stone's throw away from the Royal Mile.  The venue was run by a theatre impresario called Richard DeMarco, from whom it got it's name.   

 

Even with a reasonably-sized cast for this kind of show, with the set and sound requirements we were looking for the biggest space available.  The building was a converted church, and had a number of spaces for smaller shows as well as a cafe bar and internet room downstairs.  As of July, it was still being constructed but the young American girl in charge of organising it all showed us around the space. 

 

It was very different to the more conventional theatre space in the Arts Centre.  We were in the main space which was once the church basilica and the performance area was a thrust stage with raised multilevel seating surrounding the stage from all sides.  The audience had their backs to the stained-glass windows while for the performers the backdrop was a multi-arched partition behind which there was an aisle.  Put a black cloth just behind the arches and performers could make it unseen from one of the end of the stage to the other to make their entrance.  Seeing as there was no orchestra pit, the band had to use a space on the far side of the stage nearest the church altar.  On the opposite side of the stage on the left, was a small corner room just behind the seating where the cast, all twenty of us, would get changed and made up. 

 

Even given the complications involved in staging the show and venue-sharing, which we could now foresee now we were here, this was still an impressive venue.  A few weeks later, the full cast departed from Pittodrie Stadium in a coach and made our way down to the Festival.  It was exciting, after months of planning and rehearsal we were actually going down there.  I had my hair cut for the show so my wig would be less visible to the audience, who would be much, much closer to us than they had been in the Arts Centre.  Jack, Ricky and I went over lines in the front of the coach and all too soon descended into the rudery and banter which had characterised the first run of the show.  Ricky remarked to me, giggling, "All this time studying Shakespeare, and this is what you've sunk to."

 

It took us three hours to get there and included a quick stop along the way.  We were only going to be there for three days and all our performances would be mid-afternoon.  On getting down there, we dropped off our stuff at the digs just down the hill from the venue.

 

We did the dress rehearsal and the first show and then had dinner at the restaurant just round the corner from the theatre.  The restaurant was a Chinese buffet outlet and was said to be the same place where hard-up writer JK Rowling wrote her "Harry Potter" books using only a pen and paper.  Many of us were keen to take advantage of being in Edinburgh to see as many of the shows and of the Festival as we could.  A running joke about the Edinburgh Fringe is that you can see a Fringe show a day for year and you still wouldn't cover even half of what was going on.  Most of our time was spent wandering around the city, having fun and seeing what was on offer.  I took the time to see a couple of straight plays and a talk with the writer James Kelman.  The others saw the Tattoo up at the Castle and were dying to get tickets for a show called "Puppetry of the Penis".  Among the people we were sharing the venue with were an African dance troupe and a trio of classical singers called the Madrigirls.

 

The show itself when we performed it was actually pretty good, although I can't say it quite matched the first time we did it.  The crowd were enthusiastic but didn't throw themselves into it as heartedly as the Aberdeen audiences did.  Still some great responses and Graeme himself got into the spirit of it all by coming on-stage with us as part of the chorus during the match scenes.   

 

This was also the first time any of us had been paid for an acting job.  I can't recall the principal sum exactly or even who signed the cheque, but I think for three days acting work I got paid about £150-200.  This was the first step to getting my Equity Card.  DJ, who was considering turning professional himself as a director, was applying for his own.

 

A coach came and took us back to Aberdeen on the Sunday, a couple of hours after we performed.  There was no last night celebrations this time, but I think we all agreed that the "Glory of Gothenburg" experience was one none of us would forget in a long time.

 

THE AFTERMATH

 

As Aberdeen's Gothenburg squad eventually split up, with Fergie himself moving to Manchester United in 1986, the glory days came to an end.  Something similar happened with our cast who have done pretty much the same.

 

GRW Enterprises did return to the Edinburgh Fringe two years later in 2006.  This time we did a simple revue show with big musical numbers from popular shows like "West Side Story", "Chess" and "The Rocky Horror Show".  By this time I had now moved to London to become a professional performer but had agreed with DJ to return to do this show, which would get us both Equity cards and consolidate our status as professionals.  However, I only arrived about two weeks before we were performing and so rehearsal was minimal.  We did a quick preview in the Arts Centre before heading down to Edinburgh.  Despite the fact the Fringe was as lively a place as ever, I can't say the show even approached "Gothenburg" in terms of quality and the only review I found of the show was mixed.  Jack and Ricky came off well but my own solo number, "The Arbiter" song from "Chess" was slated.  GRW Enterprises has since remained in limbo and everyone involved has moved on to other things.

 

Even now in London 2009, Aberdeen still comes alive in my mind.  The people I knew and they way they lived and spoke, the city's granite streets and all the times I had there.  All these shows evoke Aberdeen for me, and are deeply rooted in it's history and culture.  I am baffled how I managed to get from Aberdeen to London and I can only wonder where life is going to go from here.