Aberdeen 5 - 2 Heart of Midlothian

It was good to get back to competitive football again after a three week lay-off, and finishing with a 5-2 result against Hearts Reserves. In between we played Sunnybank on our all-weather pitch at Pittodrie on the Tuesday following Christmas. The pitch was covered with hard packed snow but both teams enjoyed the game. Dougie Rougvie was referee for this game and the general opinion was that he was a bit better than the boss.
Our next friendly was against Stonehaven at Glenury Park on the Tuesday after the New Year and on a muddy pitch both teams played some good football, the star man was the Stonehaven goalkeeper who had some remarkable saves, and was unrecognisable at the end of the game because of the conditions. It gave us the opportunity to play some of our youngsters. Alan Duguid had a fine match as also had Andy Dornan who finished with a hat trick. It was very good of the players and officials to give up their holidays to give us match practise, and if it is at all possible we will be delighted to play these two teams at a later date.

HEARTS GAME:-

Our lads seemed to relish the heavy going, and turned the kind of football we've come to expect from them, and if we had taken our chances the score would have been doubled. George Campbell had a big say in our first goal, when his cross intended for Duncan Davidson was deflected past his goalkeeper by Grandison the Heart's sweeper. George scored the second, when the Hearts goalkeeper deflected a John Reilly cross to his feet. After Hearts scored through Harvey, Billy Williamson smashed a great right foot drive into the corner of the net to put us in at half-time 3-1 up.
It was the same pattern after the interval with our boys doing the bulk of the attacking and after a good piece of play between Billy Williamson and John McMaster, Ian Gibson hit John's perfect pass into the net for our fourth goal. Duncan Davidson scored our fifth after a George Campbell shot had rebounded from the "keeper". Hearts scored their second goal from the penalty spot after slack defensive work.
In a team that had no failures, our goalkeeper and back four did all that was asked of them and Duncan Davidson's extra pace up front caused the visiting defence a lot of problems. Our team was? McLean,Fraser, Williamson, Glennie, Cooper, Reilly, Rougvie, McMaster (Capt.), Gibson, Davidson, Campbell with Jim Rodgers and Doug Brown substitutes.
Speaking to Drew Busby after the game he was full of praise for our team and picked out for special:- Cooper, Glennie, McMaster and Davidson.
Ian Gibson started teaching at Bankhead Academy Tuesday as part of his training to become a teacher.

Source: Match Programme, 12th January 1977