Mark Reynolds still can’t quite believe the 2013/14 season finale against Motherwell at Pittodrie panned out the way it did for Aberdeen.
The Dons, led by Derek McInnes in his first full season in charge, had gone into the top-flight post-split with a good grip on the runners-up spot behind champions Celtic.
They were three points better off than the visiting Steelmen and – despite only managing to beat Dundee United in their first four post-split matches – they still started the Sunday, May 11, lunch-time kick-off looking strong, one point ahead of their rivals.
McInnes and his team needed just a point against Stuart McCall’s men to seal second.
Although they had several chances to get in front and limited Well to very little in the way of openings, a final minute controversy would break the hearts of Aberdeen and the Red Army.
The list of consequences was long.
It condemned the Dons to a 1-0 loss, robbed the players of second place and an extra two weeks off that summer, McInnes of the chance to take his side into a first Europa League qualifying campaign a round later the following season and the club of an extra £250,000 in prize money.
Centre-back Reynolds had a leading role in the incident which ended with Craig Reid’s last-gasp winner for the Motherwell, and two Steelmen infringements – not picked up by referee Steven McLean or the other officials – are crystallised in his mind, still leaving him baffled close to a decade later.
Reynolds said: “We only needed to draw. It was very nervy, both teams feeling each other out and one of those games where Motherwell felt the ball probably wasn’t going to drop for them.
“We sat in, kept them quiet and limited their chances.
“I remember them getting a free-kick outside their 18-yard box, but them (Keith Lasley) basically taking the free-kick inside our half.
“John Sutton then wiped out Jamie Langfield, and it was one of those things where the ref just seemed to not see a series of events.
“Could I believe it? Absolutely not. The only reason Jamie hasn’t got a touch on the ball is because Sutton stops him with his elbow and his forearm.
“It was one of those ones that was so obvious to us on the pitch that everybody stopped and was waiting for the ref to blow, and he just continued with the game.
“It was a shocking decision.
“I remember me being on the line and I think I did actually save it with my hand, but then the rebound got knocked in and the ref gave the goal.
“I was thinking: ‘I should just catch this and see what happens’, because at that point it was all or nothing.
“It was so late to concede it – and absolute devastation that we’d lost it so late on.”
‘It’s going in the net anyway, so if I can save it and it’s a penalty, we’ve still got a chance of saving it’
Reynolds’ initial save on the line – after the ball had missed Langfield and Sutton completely, bounced off the underside of the crossbar and dropped to Well defender Fraser Kerr a couple of yards out – was one which would have satisfied any goalkeeper.
Ultimately it was in vain, with Reid on hand (no pun intended) to slot home the rebound.
The 34-year-old admits the intentional hand-ball was something he weighed up in the split-second after it became clear play was continuing and the game – and Aberdeen’s bid for second with it – was in the balance.
Reynolds said: “100% (it was intentional). I remember thinking: ‘I’m on the line, with a minute to go. If I get away with it great, but it’s going in the net anyway, so if I can save it and it’s a penalty, we’ve still got a chance of saving it’.
“But play progressed and the ball ended up in the back of the net anyway.
“Even at that point, I was still half expecting the ref to blow up for a free-kick (to us).
“It was one of those strange decisions, but I’m sure if you talk to any Motherwell supporter or their players on the day, they’d have a completely different story about what happened.”
Reynolds is correct about this.
While McInnes and the Aberdeen players were left furious – including midfielder Willo Flood, who missed his best friend’s wedding that summer due to the earlier start in Europe – visiting boss McCall suggested afterwards Well deserved a touch of good fortune against the Dons, pointing to a suspect 90th-minute Russell Anderson goal at Fir Park in a 2-2 draw earlier in the campaign.
One cup won, but two big disappointments
There is a sense of what-if about the 2013/14 season for Aberdeen.
The euphoric scenes at Parkhead, and in the Granite City, after the Dons claimed the League Cup – their first trophy for close to two decades – was followed by an agonising Scottish Cup semi-final loss to St Johnstone at Tynecastle. McInnes’ men had looked odds-on for a cup double.
To miss out on the league runners-up spot and a final-day celebration with the Pittodrie support, after what was nevertheless the club’s first truly feel-good campaign for a number of years, still doesn’t sit well with Reynolds, who starred for the club between 2012 and 2019.
Now back in the north-east playing for Cove Rangers, who could claim the League One title on Saturday, Reynolds said: “It always leaves that bitter taste in your mouth, but that’s football and you need to get on with it.
“It was one of many disappointing moments at Aberdeen, and I was just lucky I was involved in a few very good ones that managed to balance that out.
“It was like a funeral in the dressing room. Terrible.
“There’s ways to win games and ways to lose games. It was a hard pill to swallow, compounded by the fact we probably had chances before that to wrap second up and hadn’t taken them.
“We had to take some of the blame, as we left ourselves open to that kind of sucker-punch in the last game of the season.
“Second would’ve been the cherry on top of the season.
“Obviously we went out of the Scottish Cup that season when we felt we could’ve gone on and won that, as well as finishing second.
“It could’ve been a historic season for Aberdeen, so there was a lot of disappointment, and it probably takes a couple of weeks to sit down and appreciate we did have good run, we still had a European run to look forward to and we’ve got a winner’s medal at the end of it.
“It was just a difficult day. You want to enjoy the end of the season and that left a sour taste where you just wanted to get home and forget about it for a while.”
