Back in the days of Mark McGhee and Craig Brown, Aberdeen’s next manager being sourced for them by Motherwell’s directors was merely a de facto arrangement.
Choosing to officially leave the filling of an active vacancy in the hands of an executive still in the erstwhile employ of a league competitor was certainly a novel move.
A solution of need in a time of unforeseen emergency, of course, and all Dons supporters send their best wishes to the indisposed Dave Cormack.
Medical investigation may have been necessary to establish the presence of deposits in Cormack’s heart but it requires no such testing to know that it is in the right place, whatever one may think of his performance running the club.
Well wishes sent to recovering Dave Cormack
These days the procedure just undergone by the Aberdeen chairman is, touch wood, much more routine than its frightening name makes it sound, so it is to be hoped that he will be back at Pittodrie before long to welcome both Alan Burrows and the manager he recruits on his behalf.
❤️⚽️❤️⚽️ just told @CormackDavie the score, he’s glad @AberdeenFC won today! He thanks everybody for all the well wishes as he recovers. pic.twitter.com/FczyHi94QL
— Craig Cormack (@CraigCormack6) February 25, 2023
Cormack has been front and centre of every major Pittodrie event during his chairmanship, so the dilution of duties might be no bad thing.
So too, strangely, the delay it has built into the hiring process, for it has inadvertently helped create the feeling that things which were hurtling towards disaster are reasonably under control in Barry Robson’s hands.
Sad passing of Ron Gordon
The sad death of Ron Gordon – by turns a friend, rival and yardstick to his near-contemporary Cormack – acts as a reminder to us all that tomorrow is promised to no-one, and to football clubs that their destiny could turn in an instant without futureproofing and succession planning.
History may show this as an occasion where Aberdeen’s future was delivered to it by fate.
It works in truly mysterious ways.
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