It was the future rather than the past which dominated Aberdeen shareholders’ minds as they gathered at Pittodrie for the club’s 119th annual meeting.
Dons chairman Dave Cormack, his directors and manager Jim Goodwin were present to answer questions which ranged from the club’s stadium plans for the future to improving the Reds’ defensive record on the park.
He said: “The stadium at the beach will be debated by the council on Wednesday. At this time, the club believes a dual approach is prudent.”
“(Former chairman) Stewart (Milne) has been at this a lot longer than I have.
“We have to invest in the infrastructure. There’s no John Lewis now, no Debenhams.
“There’s the beach ballroom which is past its sell-by date.
“We need to invest in that infrastructure to get football back here.”
Goodwin encouraged by progress on the field
While bricks and mortar are uppermost in the chairman’s mind, with good reason, manager Goodwin is eager to see further improvement on the pitch as the action resumes this weekend.
A five-week break due to the World Cup has given Goodwin the chance to reflect on his 10 months in charge.
The Dons are in third place in the league and have a League Cup semi-final to look forward to next month, but Goodwin knows there is still room for improvement.
He said: “There has been significant improvements on the pitch, hence where we’re sitting in the table now, but the big thing for me, my staff and players, we know there is so much more to come.
“We haven’t hit the ceiling yet in terms of what we can do and there is some polishing we need to do.
“There have been significant changes made, but, in terms of since I came in, we’ve recruited heavily in the squad and the backroom staff.
“We’re heading in the right direction and if I had to give you a teacher’s school card, he’s doing okay, but can do better – that’s what I’d say about the team at the moment.
“We’re relatively pleased, but know we’ve got room for improvement.”
Dons boss grilled about defensive record
One shareholder knew which area in particular and used his chance to quiz the Dons boss on the team’s poor defensive record.
Goodwin said: “The goals we’ve conceded away from home, there have been far too many and I take full responsibility for that.
“It’s not one player’s responsibility and it is something I’ve reflected on in the last four weeks.
“I believe we’ve been too open away from home.
“We’ve (only) conceded six goals at Pittodrie. Celtic have conceded five, Rangers have conceded three.
“Away from home we’ve conceded 17 goals, which is far too many in eight games.
“I’m confident we will sort it out.
“Talk is cheap and we will be judged on the results in the second part of the season. But I can tell you we are working extremely hard.”
New director Efstathiou in town
For Atlanta United’s Dimitrios Efstathiou, the annual meeting was his first engagement as a director.
As introductions go, it was an ideal opportunity to immerse himself in his new surroundings.
He said: “I intend to honour the history and tradition of this club.
“This partnership between our two clubs kicked off in November 2019 to great fanfare, then we had Covid.
“We entered into a period where we had serious restrictions in terms of travel, played matches in bubbles and were socially distanced for two seasons, so our well-intentioned plans were put on hold.
“We’re not at a stage where we can hit reset and we had a taste of that in November when we hosted Aberdeen for their winter training camp.
“It’s a taste of what can be, as it wasn’t just the squad – it was the front office: academy, commercial and even esports.
“We might be a young club in the United States, but we do have a long history in sports and entertainment understanding at our club.
“We run Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which is a fantastic stadium with quite a bit of new tech.
“The idea on our side is to bring value, but also this club (Aberdeen) has over 100 years of history which we can only hope to have in Atlanta 100 years from now.”
The resolutions to receive the financial statements for the year ended June 30, 2022, re-elect Rob Wicks and Kevin MacIver as directors and confirm the appointment of Willie Garner and Atlanta United representative Efstathiou as directors were all carried.
