ABERDEEN THE EUROPEAN ERA BOOK REVIEW - August 1997
| Attention UEFA! Why bother going through increasingly
twisted hoops trying to make sure only big, rich teams are allowed into the
Champions' League? Why not do things the way they were in the old days? For example,
when the European Cup was first introduced in 1955, entry wasn't granted to each
nation's champions, but to the side nominated by each country's national
association. (Thus, Scotland's first-ever representatives weren't the
then-champions Aberdeen, but Hibernian, who'd placed fifth in that season's
league). Imagine the trouble it would save if the FA and SFA could just nominate Man Utd
and Rangers every year and save all that tedious business of actually playing football to
decide who was the best. Snippets of little-known info like that litter this book, one which is a cut above the usual half-baked club histories we get by the lorryload here at TF. While it concentrates on the European campaigns of Aberdeen from 1966 to the present day, every chapter also features a perceptive and frank overview of the club's season generally, and the second half of the book contains the most comprehensive results directory I've ever seen, with full details of every league, cup and Euro game played over the 30-year period, right down to a two-sentence match report on each individual game. There's more of interest for the non-fan here than in any similar book I've seen, but at 17 quid it's difficult to honestly recommend it to the general reader. Aberdeen fans, though, should get down to Waterstones without even waiting to read the end of this sen VERDICT: An unmissable documentary for Dons fans, and a lesson for other book publishers. |
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