The Neil Warnock fiasco will go down as one of the most embarrassing periods in Aberdeen Football Club’s long and proud history – and given some of what has gone on in recent years, that really is saying something!
Regular readers of this column will know that is not me talking with the benefit of hindsight. From the off, I expressed my grave concerns over the appointment, and I was staggered how many people were so readily prepared to climb aboard the Warnock bandwagon.
Out of respect to the club, and having sought the wise counsel of those whose opinion I value, I have to admit that I did pull my punches here. Each column was rewritten and redrafted, and committing the full extent of my feelings to the page would probably have been inadvisable.
The club I have supported all my life has become a laughing stock, and it hurts.
Chairman Cormack has Dons at heart – but team has regressed alarmingly during tenure
I have no doubt chairman Dave Cormack also feels that pain, but in his case, unfortunately, it is self-inflicted. I will never begin to understand the thought process which led him to believe Project Warnock would prove successful.
Dave is an Aberdeen man through and through. Everything he does for the club – and he has done plenty – comes from the heart, it is well intentioned.
But his tenure has lurched from crisis to crisis with all too infrequent mini-highs, and on the pitch, where it really matters, the team has regressed alarmingly.
Update on external review revealed shocking lack of progress in Aberdeen new manager hunt
The club began the week by releasing a statement updating fans on the external “holistic” review which has been carried out.
It was written up as a positive undertaking, one which would lead to a transformational restructuring of the football set-up. They also took time to pat themselves on the back for having “very good policy” and “robust processes” in place.
I found it all very difficult to take on board.
The part that really stood out was the section regarding the appointment of a new manager.
Despite having sacked Barry Robson six weeks previously, the club were no closer to securing a permanent replacement – I found that, like so much else, incomprehensible.
I would have expected the new man to have been identified, spoken to, and agreement reached by now. Shockingly, the release explained interviews were only now being lined up.
We can only hope that after four false starts, Dave Cormack finally gets the right man. If he, and his presumably well-remunerated external advisers, get this one wrong, I hate to think where the club might end up.
While the situation behind the scenes is bad enough, it is little better out on the park.
Aberdeen might yet pay ultimate price for lack of leadership as players booed off in Premiership again
Having put in a strong showing and clinched a deserved Scottish Cup victory over Kilmarnock, I was hoping to see the players pick up where they left off when they made the short journey down to Dundee.
Instead, the sizeable away support were served up yet another sub-standard Premiership performance which saw the team rightly booed off both at half-time and after the final whistle.
With Ross County scoring late to snatch a dramatic equaliser in Dingwall, the Dons find themselves just three points clear of the play-off place ahead of Saturday’s hazardous trip to Fir Park.
If they cannot improve upon Wednesday night’s dismal display, the likelihood is it will be a 12th league game without a win.
With County visiting Pittodrie after the international break, Aberdeen’s plight could get be about to get even worse.
My feeling is that they will have enough to avoid the ignominy of being relegated for the first time in the club’s history, but that might just be wishful thinking, and the players have offered little to back up such a theory.
All of which makes events over the past month-and-a-half even less forgivable.
At a time when the club needed strong, decisive leadership at the very top, what we got was a circus.
Valuable time has been wasted, the team has suffered as a result, and the ultimate price might yet be paid.
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