In My Life...

...I Love You More

As I surveyed the scene at Hampden Park, as the 20,000-strong Red Army began to filter out of the National Stadium into the streets of the Southside of Glasgow, Jimmy Thelin was taking selfies with some fans at the front of the South Stand and, for some reason, Johnny Cash’s cover of The Beatles’ “In My Life” began to play in my head.

It was something of a shock later in the evening to discover that the BBC had used the same track to accompany their closing montage of the game - fools seldom differ and all that, I guess?

I know I’ll often stop and think about Saturday 24th May 2025.

A magical day that started early at Church on the Hill.

People have often asked why we started the podcast in the first place - the truth of the matter is it was a seed planted during the horrors of COVID football. The 3 of us would often jump onto a Zoom call to talk about the game that we’d all endured via RedTV - a soulless season in so many ways.

The premise was simple, what if we just recorded this stuff and see if anyone enjoyed it? The only mantra we ever had was that it had to feel and sound like you were in the pub, post-game, with your mates - if there were wild, off-topic segues they would be kept. They wouldn’t be edited out, after all that’s what happens when you are in the pub with your pals.

Did that mean that some of our early episodes were incredibly long? Yes.

Did we care? Not really - that was kind of the point.

We’ve never really sought any sort of validation for what we do on a Sunday night - but if we were, some of the conversations that I had in Church on the Hill on Saturday provided it.

Hearing from individuals who are now based on the other side of the world, who feel that pang of homesickness from time to time telling us that we are literally their only connection back to Aberdeen is an incredibly touching thing to hear - that makes it all worth while.

Church on the Hill was great, we really appreciate all of you who turned up and we hope we delivered something that helped contribute to your day - thank you to Steve Tosh & John McMaster for coming in about as well, offering some thoughts on what was to come and, in John’s case, showing off a Scottish Cup medal or 2.

Enough about that though.

Onto Hampden and a date with destiny.

The Manager - No Plan B?

Unfancied is being extremely polite. Nobody outside of our Club and our support gave us a hope in hell in derailing Celtic’s inevitable march to another treble.

Rent-a-gob mouthpieces in the media talking about how Celtic at -6 was a great bet. Supposedly “professional” outfits taking the mickey, suggesting that they’d have to “wear a full Aberdeen kit if they won” out in force. The entire build up had Jimmy Thelin’s men very much painted as the rank outsiders with little to no chance of taking an 8th Scottish Cup back to Pittodrie.

Perhaps it wasn’t just the media that felt this way either. Indeed, after the soul-destroying end to the league campaign, the build up to the weekend felt flat. As the week marched towards Saturday, the more I spoke to fellow Dons, the more a quiet confidence was starting to build that, maybe, just maybe this might be our year.

After a week of drawing up possible permutations for shape and team makeup, Jimmy did what we were all hoping he’d do - he shook up his system in order to try and win the trophy - for anyone doubting if Jimmy would be willing to sacrifice his principles when it mattered, there can be no doubt now.

Out of all the shapes, out of all of the personnel - I’m not sure that many were predicting a 5-3-2 with Jack Milne anchoring the centre halves and Nicky Devlin slotting in to the left wing-back slot.

This was, already, a brave decision by the manager - Hampden represented only an 8th (there’s that number again) start for Milne in his entire first team career. Thelin showed huge bravery to throw young Jack into the staring lineup, in such a critical game but then, our Club has history for believing in our young players in these situations - for Jack Milne, think of Eoin Jess in the 1989 Skol Cup Final and Graham Watson in the 1990 Scottish Cup Final.

Jimmy’s tactics worked an absolute treat - yes, Celtic had plenty of possession in the first 45 minutes at Hampden but the men in red were resolute in their defensive work - restricting a Celtic side who amassed 112 goals in the Premiership alone to absolutely no clear cut chances in open play.

The goal that Celtic do score was fortunate in the extreme as Carter-Vickers’ header takes a deflection off of Alfie Dorrington.

Credit again has to go to the players and management team - it would’ve been really easy for our heads to drop, with confidence evaporating - especially given our recent history against Celtic where they have rapidly scored 2, 3 and 4 goals after making the breakthrough against us.

As it was, the Dons made it to the half-time interval with little in the way of drama - a chance to regroup and reset.

Thelin’s side certainly started the second half in brighter mood and were able to retain possession better than in the first 45 minutes. The introduction of Pape Habib Gueye just before the hour mark was significant. Topi Keskinen had done everything asked of him in terms of effort and endeavour without really seeing much of the ball - Gueye though provided us with a real outball and the Senegalese maverick deserves huge credit for his hold up play once introduced. This has been an area of Gueye’s game that he, deservedly, has been given some stick in relation to but at Hampden the ball stuck with him when it arrived at his feet and his physicality, awkward style and running power created a different problem for Celtic to deal with.

The triple change on 79 minutes with Dabbagh, Polvara & Morris arriving onto the field was peak Thelin. In the early stages of the season when we embarked on a ridiculous unbeaten run, Thelin had a great knack for making impactful subs at the right time - this trend has certainly disappeared as the year wore on but, when it mattered, the Swede’s magical touch reappeared.

All 3 players provided fresh energy, fresh impetus and the Dons suddenly looked the hungrier and fitter side as Celtic continued to toil. If we were looking for omens, an 83rd minute equaliser was right up there. Morris doing what he does best and bang, the Dons are back in the game - cue scenes of unbridled bedlam in the West and South Stands of Hampden Park - you simply had to be there.

20,000+ clad in red, we all now believed.

35 years, 1 Stenhousemuir, 1 Darvel, 120 minutes and then fucking penalties…

We never quite manage to do things the easy way.

Polvara’s shot over the bar and Gueye’s fluffed effort in extra time felt like they may have been 2025’s equivalent of Hayes/McLean… As the game ebbed towards penalties, an unerring calm seemed to envelope the red side of Hampden.

Dimitar Mitov’s save from MacGregor settled any nerves - surely now, we were on par to do this?

Penalties are a lottery, we often hear. Are they though?

Aberdeen had done their prep work - somewhere in the build up, we’d identified that Schmeichel’s injury to his right shoulder was still bothering him, to the point that he was incredibly reluctant to dive on his right side - there’s a strong possibility this is what leads to the equaliser but the Dons truly made this nugget of information pay dividends in the shoot-out.

From all of the reports following the match, it was clear that the Aberdeen penalty takers were encouraged to aim their penalties to the left portion of the goal to take advantage of the Celtic keeper’s restricted movement. Being encouraged to do something is one thing, execution is an entirely different beast.

All 4 of the Aberdeen penalties were magnificent - Shinnie leading by example and smashing his into the top corner, Polvara giving the keeper the eyes and rolling his to the other side, Cup-Tie Oday Dabbagh adopting an unorthodox run up before rifling his effort home before noising up Maeda with Ante Palaversa’s strike the cherry on the top of a very fine cake - the character and bottle shown by all 4 men was off the charts and the prep work that went in during the course of the week(s) running up to the Final had clearly paid off.

A lottery? Not for me, Ted.

The Celebrations

From our angle in the South Stand, from the moment Johnston struck his penalty we knew it was being saved - Mitov anticipated where the Canadian was going to aim and his timing was perfect.

As the ball spun back off our Bulgarian stopper - it felt, briefly, as though the world stopped on it’s axis before… the noise.

Oh, the noise.

An incredible roar from the massed ranks of the Red Army - 35 years of hurt and pain unleashed in the most guttural of moments before all hell broke loose on the pitch and in the stands.

Grown men sobbing into each others chests. Friends, families and strangers hugging each other across seats and rows of the National Stadium in scenes that the old lady hasn’t seen at a national Cup Final since Hibs won it in 2016.

This hit different.

Rumours have abounded through the course of the season about a “split” in the Aberdeen dressing room - this chatter particularly came to the fore during the losing run that threatened to derail our campaign in it’s entirety. Now, it should be said that there was never any actual evidence of such a split existing - any time we spoke to our sources within the Club, this was always downplayed but if there was any grain of truth in those rumours, they were blown away with the celebrations on the park at Hampden.

Yes, it’s easy to be pals with everyone when you are winning things but watching the team interact with each other and with the manager during the celebrations was incredibly pleasing to watch - this looks like a squad fully committed to their manager and vice versa.

The trophy lift, the singing, the dancing, the selfies, the fireworks and everything that followed were class - every bit of it soaked up by the Aberdeen support desperate for the day to never end.

What It Means

I’ve had this paragraph open on my screen for the best part of 2 weeks now.

I’m not entirely sure, quite yet, what it does all mean. In the 13 days since the Final, I’ve caught myself having to check that it did actually happy - any excuse to watch the highlights back again, eh?

For so long, it felt like winning the Scottish Cup was perhaps just not for us anymore.

Since we last won the thing, we’ve made it to the last 4 on 14 occasions - which, when you consider how miserable our general existence as a Club has been for much of that period, is actually not a terrible return.

Yes, there are the horror shows that were Stenhousemuir, Queen of the South, Dunfermline, Raith & Darvel but it’s that more recent run from 2010 onwards where we have made the semis on 9 occasions in 15 seasons that seemed to hurt the most, particularly as we often ran up against the trophy-collecting juggernaut that has been Celtic for much of the 21st century.

On 5 of those 9 occasions it’s been the side from Glasgow’s East End that have stood in our way - with their financial power (which only continues to grow), it became harder and harder to see a way towards lifting the Scottish Cup once again - this doesn’t just go for Aberdeen but for the majority of teams in Scotland.

As the Celtic support filed out of Hampden quicker than snow off a dyke, it was striking to me what that said about the level of entitlement that they have on winning trophies - lest they forget that their side still won two trophies & had an improved showing in Europe this season and, ultimately, were a penalty shoot out away from another treble yet there was little to no appreciation on display for their side’s efforts over the course of a long season. This was displayed in-game as well - the celebrations at Celtic’s goal were muted in the extreme and you could hear a pin drop in the Celtic end throughout the course of the 120 minutes. All of this just helped to inflate the sheer sense of exuberance at our end.

Sharing the moment with 20,000 other Dons fans, knowing that there were countless more watching back at home or abroad meant so much. As a one-club city (sorry Cove) that win was not just for the Club - that was a win for the North-East of Scotland and for our granite home - there’s very few Clubs in Scotland that can truly claim to solely represent their city in the way that Aberdeen does and that is a special, intangible thing that is hard to explain.

Sharing this with Gav & Graham was amazing.

These are two of the most unflappable individuals that you could ever meet - two men who keep themselves relatively guarded and don’t show a lot of emotion at the best of times but getting to share THE moment with them was brilliant - the three of us have been through the ringer (as have most Aberdeen fans, let’s be honest) following this Club over the years. Yes, we grumble on the pod about the state of things from time to time but it all stems from a genuine love of the Club & a sense of pride in our home town. Can we be overly critical of goings on sometimes? Maybe - but it all comes from a place of wanting the Club to be the absolute best that it can be at all times. Boys, it was epic - let’s hope we can do it again some time?

Last but, by no means least, to my son.

Perhaps one day, you’ll end up doing a wee search of the nonsense that Daddy got up to with the podcast and other “stuff” associated with the Dons - perhaps you’ll stumble across this and I really hope that at some point, you do.

I know you’ve wondered for a while as to why Daddy does the podcast with Uncle Gav & Graham. I’ve tried before to explain the reasons behind it in the same way that I have above but I got the feeling that at Church on the Hill on Saturday morning, you truly understood it and really grasped what it means to be Aberdeen.

You’ve already been through the ringer in your short life supporting the Dons - it broke my heart seeing how inconsolable you were in the bowels of Hampden last December when the League Cup slipped away from us.

I know how anxious you were about the prospect of your favourites being on the receiving end of a hefty defeat to Celtic. I was so proud of your bravery to put that behind you and push yourself to wanting to be at the National Stadium once more, determined to do your bit to try and will your heroes on.

I was your age the last time we won the Scottish Cup.

I was fortunate enough to have caught the tail end of the glory days of the 80s - my Hampden record was 2 for 2 as we completed the Cup double in 1989/90. My Dad had already regaled me with tales of Easter Road, of Gothenburg, of Super Cup victories and bagging cups left, right and centre.

This was just what Aberdeen did.

As I watched Theo Snelders save from Anton Rogan & Brian Irvine step up to take his place in the history books, I would have never believed that it would be 35 long years before we would do it again - let alone that I’d have a son of my own, of the same age the next time.

With the exceptions of the day I married your Mum and the births of your sister and you - Saturday, 24th May 2025 was the happiest day of my life and that was entirely down to the fact that I shared it with you.

It was the greatest privilege of my life to be in that moment with you - to see your overwhelmed face when Shady Mo’s cross outfoxed the Celtic goalie, to see your anticipation before penalties, to see your delight when Mitov stopped McGregor’s penalty, your excitement at knowing we were one penalty away from victory, your sheer outpouring of joy when our Bulgarian No. 1 dived low to win the Cup - it was simply incredible.

I love you - and I will cherish that day in Glasgow with you for the rest of my days.

Scottish Cup Winners - 2025.

Unbelievabl8.