Quintin Jardine's blog

What is it about Aberdeen Football Club? Eighteen months ago, they lured away with untold blandishments, one Mark McGhee, then manager of Motherwell, the team that both Bob Skinner and I support, as a result of boyhood curses upon us. Maybe they did us a favour, for things didn’t work out so well for Mark at chilly Pittodrie,and a couple of weeks ago, he received the football manager’s traditional reward, his P45. So what have they done now, these gentlemen with delusions of adequacy? They’ve only gone and tapped up the venerable duo who are currently enjoying great success at Fir Park, having led the club into Europe last season and this year being well placed to finish third, in other words to win the real Scottish Premier League, the one that’s unconnected with the mini-league that Rangers and Celtic contest between them. Craig Brown and his assistant Archie Knox are probably the most senior management team in British football. Craig is a respected figure, a former national team manager in an era when we actually qualified for the finals of major tournaments. He is also 70 years old, even older than Sir Alex, even older than me, and Archie isn’t far behind him in the years department.

So what is it with the Aberdeen chairman that makes him imagine that our Craig and Archie would have the slightest interest in leaving a currently successful club, for one which is just as starved of resources and which is currently propping up the league. Beats me. So far the signs are that it beats Craig and Archie as well. Let’s hope it stays that way, for as Mr Mike Ashley has proved at Newcastle, logic, common sense, and a few other things as well have no place in modern football.