Our supporters club (as we know it) started in august 1976. Ally McLeod had harnessed an upturn in enthusiasm at Pittodrie – encouragingly this led to an explosion in supporters groups in Aberdeen and the North East. Blue Toon Dons prior to this had to make do with chartered busses laid on to Pittodrie by Messrs. Alexander & Co (who eventually evolved somehow into the Stagecoach Bluebird of today).

Committee members in the late 70s/early 80s tended to be Charlie Massie (chairman), John Gall (senior and junior – indeed John Gall snr had a spell as chairman himself in the 80s), Johnny Joiner (bus convener), Graham Allardice (Micey), Norman Marr (from Zanzibar!) , Sandy + Lydia Gibb (Lynda was secretary for many years), Gavin Scott (treasurer), George Rennie, Peter Stephen and Bert Phillips.

The highlight, of course, in the early days was Gothenburg in 1983 and as far as I remember our club traveled on the St. Clair. Micey Allardice had his finest hour on this voyage – he won the the ship's keepie-uppy competition! Rumour had it, though that Micey only achieved about 6!!!

The annual night out then tended to be a large event, a dinner with players of the years and their spouses e.g. Willie Miller, Alex McLeish, Jim Leighton etc. Other laughs for that period included Peter Stephen's trousers falling down on the bus on the way back from a semi-final.

As the 80s went on some of our younger members became committee members e.g. David Stewart, Billy Phillips (son of Bert who sadly died in the early 90s), Michael Wiseman and the never to be forgotten Eiliadh Gall (daughter of John).

The late 80s/90s saw the committee evolve into roughly the format it has today. I joined the committee in 1988 and became chairman a year later. In 1989 Alex Davidson, Dave Stewart (once again) and Ian Nicol joined the committee with Charlie, John and Norman stepping down around about this time. Then Graham Morrice became bus convener in 1990. The rest is history.

Innovations included a much more formal gathering in a local pub for our Player of the Year night. We linked up briefly with the Buchan Branch to provide buses to away games. The first such occasion saw myself getting my shoes and socks confiscated on a particularly boozy homeward journey from St. Mirren. Previously we had linked up with the Broch bus at Mintlaw to go to away games.

Other innovations included transport to EVERY AWAY MATCH as well as a short lived '100 Club' monthly raffle to boost club funds, although this suddenly cut itself in half to a '50 club' in one Buchanie advertisement by yours truly!

Recent years have been tough for supporters clubs due to the team's poor results. However we retain an enthusiastic membership keen to go to most games – we even went European with a trip to Dublin for the Don's ill-fated UEFA Cup tie with Bohemians in August 2000.

Long may our supporters club thrive – lets hope the Dons climb the league – lets hope we keep supporting the fortunes of the Scottish licensing trade for a lot of years yet.

Billy Noble (Chairman)