When Willie Miller made the journey north to Aberdeen to embark on his professional playing career as a youngster, no one could have foreseen what was to come.
Here was this gangly teen, a centre-forward by trade, who had decided on a change of scenery as he took his first tentative steps into the men’s game, casting off the yoke of his upbringing in Glasgow’s east end in search of something more.
Good lord, would he do just that. The tough-tackling, no-nonsense centre-half wore the captain’s armband with distinction during his two decades as a player at Pittodrie, leading the team to unprecedented glories that culminated in that glorious crescendo in Gothenburg nearly 40 years ago.
Nobody ever wore it better. Voted as the greatest player in the Dons’ history by supporters, Miller left behind a gargantuan legacy at the north-east club. It was 50 years ago tomorrow that it all began as the fresh-faced defender got his first taste of the professional game when he clambered off the bench against Morton; ten years later he would be triumphantly holding the Cup Winners’ Cup aloft having conquered Real Madrid. To this day, it remains the last time the Spaniards were defeated in a European final.
Having a certain Alex Ferguson in the dugout clearly helped Aberdeen to the club’s greatest-ever achievement but Miller insists that it was a success that was years in the making. The winning mentality that saw the Dons conquer the continent was instilled a few years previous when the title was claimed in the 1979/80 campaign, he says, while he himself had been kicking around the game for a fair while before Ferguson’s revolution took effect.
“You have to remember, I had been playing for nearly 10 years before we hit the Eighties and got the real success that we enjoyed then,” Miller explained. “I had a year in Peterhead [on loan] but it was not that long until I was in the first team – ’73, I think it was.
“You then have different managers you have to deal with, different characters as a manager….Jimmy Bonthrone and Ally MacLeod, Billy McNeill – we came very close to it with Billy the year he had, and had very good players at that time – and then of course Alex Ferguson coming in, which was a different approach all together.
“It is really trying to get to a point where the club is comfortable, the players are comfortable and the manager is comfortable when you think you are going to have a bit of success. And that really came at Easter Road, when we won the title.
“That was the defining moment in my mind that the club was going to be successful. For five or six years in the 80s… well, it’s all there, the amount of trophies we won. That was the point that the belief was there something special was happening.”
That belief would only grow and by the time the 1982/83 season rolled around, Aberdeen were convinced they could go toe-to-toe with just about anyone on the planet. European results only strengthened their conviction as they progressed through the Cup Winners’ Cup and there was a real sense amongst the players that they were on the brink of something special.
Their self-assuredness would be tested to its limits in the quarter-finals. The Dons were drawn against Bayern Munich in the last eight and went into the second leg of the tie with it all to play for after securing a goalless draw in Bavaria in the reverse fixture.
What followed was the greatest night at one of Scotland’s grandest old grounds. The Karl-Heinz Rummenigge-inspired Germans twice took the lead at Pittodrie and with a little over 15 minutes to go, enjoyed a 2-1 lead – only for Alex McLeish and John Hewitt to score two goals in as many minutes to turn the tie on its head and send the Dons through to the semis.
The likes of Ipswich and Hamburg had already been despatched by the Dons in previous rounds and those victories provided the players with the necessary fuel for the fire on that famous night at Pittodrie. Miller isn’t convinced that any of Aberdeen’s opponents held them in great esteem but he reckons that suited Ferguson and his players down to the ground.
Miller recalled: “I think it is a build-up of belief, and in particular beating the Germans – no disrespect to the English by the way, it was always fun beating them! But we had a feeling the Germans were the ones to beat, and the Bundesliga was pretty special in the 80s with the players they had available.
“We had taken a couple of defeats in the years prior to beating Bayern so I think you get that belief by playing teams of that level, but you are also building belief through international appearances as well as a player.
“That gives you an acceptance that you’re not that bad. Because, when you are playing for Aberdeen in the 1970s, you are a bad player outside of Scotland. They do not give you any credit at all.
“When we [Scotland] beat England [in 1981], they are looking at me and big Alex and they hadn’t a clue about our ability. They are not interested in Scottish football. In fact, I think it’s the same nowadays as well. I don’t think they are particularly interested in Scottish football and they don’t think the standard is particularly good, certainly outside Rangers and Celtic.
“So, I think that as a team you are learning all the time and as an individual player you are growing in confidence as well just from having the experience of playing big-name players at international level and at club level. That is what you have to do.
“You have to bin their reputations. You have to say, who is Karl-Heinz Rummenigge? Yes, he has a big, long name but is he any good at playing the game? And then you are up against him and he has this big reputation but you manage to – I am not saying not give him a kick of the ball – but you manage to control him, over two legs as well.
“Sometimes there’s a tendency to get carried away with the reputation of players. I always think if they come with a reputation and they prove that reputation that’s fine, and I have had that on a couple of occasions, against France and Brazil in particular, when they were just too good. But they have to prove that on the field of play. Don’t go out there with the mindset they are better than you. That’s how you build up belief.”
Miller’s tussle with Rummenigge may have boosted the defender’s confidence but it came at a cost, too: the bustling German striker ended up inadvertently knocking out a few of the Scot’s teeth.
“Yes, in the quarter final – in the first game over there,” Miller said. “He was noted for these spectacular overhead kicks inside the penalty box. He actually tried to help me after the game to find my tooth! He did, seriously!
“He was all apologetic. But the front tooth just got popped out and it was one of his overhead kicks. I put my head in for the cross and his boot caught me in the face and the tooth popped out. Didn’t find it by the way!”
Miller pauses for a second, remembering his rough-and-tumble upbringing with a smile, before adding: “If someone kicks you in the teeth in the east end of Glasgow, they don’t then help you look for your teeth!”
Belgian outfit Waterschei were next on the chopping block and the Dons made light work of them, winning 5-2 on aggregate to tee up a final with Real Madrid. Their 2-1 win after extra time would go down as one of the greatest achievements in the history of the Scottish game but at the time, Miller and his team-mates did not truly comprehend the sheer scale of it all.
“It was just another final as well, believe it or not,” Miller explained. “I think when you look back now you realise how enormous it was and put Aberdeen on the European football map. But at the time – and I don’t mean this to be blasé – yes you knew it was a European final, but we didn’t know how big it was and how much of a difference it was going to make to you as a player and the club as well being recognised throughout Europe.
“You do get uptight. It is a cup final and you do get uptight before cup finals but not to the extreme where you leave anything in the dressing room. We didn’t.
“I think by that stage we were mature enough to handle it. Maybe if we knew the effect it would have on our lives and careers and club and city then we might have been a bit more uptight. But because we treated it like just another cup final I think it helps you get through it.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh this is Real Madrid’. We had already beaten Bayern Munich and the Germans were better than the Spaniards at that time, although Real Madrid were of course a huge name. But for us, we had already beaten the best team in the competition so why can we not beat Real Madrid?
“None of us were overawed by the occasion and the way we played showed that we were fully focused and ready to embrace what was coming our way.”
And didn’t they do just that. Glory awaited, and Miller and his team-mates grasped it firmly with both hands. Their success still rings through the annals and the statue of Ferguson outside Pittodrie casts a very large shadow indeed. Miller was as integral as anyone in securing that monumental achievement and it is one that will simply never be forgotten. Not bad for a boy from Glasgow’s east end.
