Forty Years On, Ferguson's Exit From Aberdeen Still Stings

Forty years ago this week, Alex Ferguson left Aberdeen for Manchester United, and the Dons have spent much of the time since wondering what might have been. The headline line, "He'll regret it", reflects how many in the north-east saw the departure at the time: a manager who had just built one of the most successful club sides in Scotland was being poached by an English giant that had been struggling.

Ferguson arrived at Pittodrie in 1978 and found a club that had been living in the shadow of Glasgow's Old Firm. He changed that. Aberdeen won the Scottish league title in 1980, 1984 and 1985, and lifted the Scottish Cup in 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1986. The biggest night came in 1983, when they beat Real Madrid 2-1 in Gothenburg to win the European Cup Winners' Cup, a result that announced a provincial club as a serious force on the continent. They added the UEFA Super Cup that same year by beating Hamburg.

The club was built around a side that played with pace, discipline and an edge that rivals found hard to handle. Players such as Willie Miller, Alex McLeish and Gordon Strachan became national figures, and the team's success helped make Aberdeen a byword for ambition outside the Glasgow clubs.

Then came the call from Old Trafford. In November 1986, Ferguson was appointed to succeed Ron Atkinson at a United side that had gone long periods without a major trophy and whose supporters were growing restless. Ferguson's first seasons there were slow to produce silverware. The FA Cup in 1990 was the first sign that the project would work, and the rest is history.

For Aberdeen, the story is more complicated. The club never again enjoyed a period quite like the Ferguson years, and the question of what the team might have achieved with him staying on still comes up whenever the subject is raised. Four decades on, the verdict in Aberdeen is less about blame than about a golden era that ended, and the sense that it ended too soon.