Breaking the Old Firm: Fergie's Aberdeen Revolution
It Was What It Was : The Football History Podcast
The Overlap
4.9 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2026
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome back to It Was What It Was, the football history podcast. In this week's episode, co-hosts Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper are joined by Michael Grant, Scottish football correspondent for The Times and author of Fergie Rises, to tell the story of how a young Alex Ferguson shattered the Old Firm duopoly and transformed Aberdeen into serial winners.
This Episode was recorded before the dramatic showdown on the final day of the SPL season between Celtic and Hearts, but was this just the start of the Hearts story? Will they continue threatening to break the Rangers-Celtic stranglehold for years to come? Wilson, Draper and Grant trace the remarkable parallels with Ferguson's Aberdeen revolution. They explore how a brash 36-year-old manager, fresh from a humiliating tribunal after being sacked by St Mirren, walked into a club that had nearly been relegated two years earlier and forged a dynasty. Along the way, they examine the clashes on the pitch, the psychological scars of Fergie's playing days, the infamous post-cup final rant that still hurts his players 40 years on. Michael Grant reveals the man behind the myth... volatile, funny, manipulative, and utterly relentless.
00:00 Introduction — Hearts, the Old Firm, and Why Fergie Matters Now
06:30 Aberdeen Before Ferguson — Nearly Relegated
12:45 The St Mirren Sacking and the Tribunal
19:20 The Westhill Willy Biters
27:10 Willie Miller and the Power Struggle
34:50 Breaking the Old Firm's Psychological Hold
42:15 Winning the League — 5-0 at Easter Road
48:00 Knocking on Fergie's Door at 3am
53:40 The Liverpool Humiliation
58:10 Fergie's Fury — The Morning After Anfield
01:03:20 Youth Development and Building a Dynasty
01:09:00 The Infamous 1983 Cup Final Rant
01:14:30 Why the Old Firm Were Vulnerable — and can Hearts Can Do It Again?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well, welcome to it was what it was. And before we get into our main episode today, we did want to remind you that our Patreon page is available. And our Patreon is super exciting, isn't it, Jonathan? |
| 0:10.4 | Oh, it couldn't be more exciting, Rob. Every Wednesday, you're getting a countdown to the World Cup. That will go on during the tournament itself. So if you join the Patreon, you can go back and we've been doing them from 1930 all the way through, so you can read the whole back catalogue. But every week we release a new one going through the World Cups and Order, obviously based on my book, because why would I not sell myself? That's what this game's all about. So World Cup Wednesdays, but that's not all, is it? We also give you stuff on Fridays. |
| 0:38.0 | It's certainly not all. Yeah, on Fridays we have an extra episode. Often that's a bonus episode |
| 0:42.9 | picking up on themes, which we've talked about in the main episode, and we do live Q&As, if my |
| 0:50.2 | board band holds out. And sometimes we flick through old shoot magazines. In general, it's quite a lot of fun and it's just a deeper dive into some of the themes we get into in these main edition so do please go and check out the patron page do also remember to review us because that also helps get a scene and noticed but do enjoy the rest of the main episode, but check out our patron. |
| 1:21.1 | Welcome to It Was What It Was. |
| 1:22.6 | I'm Rob Draper. |
| 1:23.8 | I'm here with Jonathan Wilson. |
| 1:25.2 | And today we're joined by a brilliant guest and we're joined by |
| 1:28.8 | Michael Grant who's Scottish football correspondent for the Times but more importantly he's |
| 1:34.7 | the author of what I consider to be a brilliant book and a central must read. It's Fergie |
| 1:39.7 | rises and it charts Sir Alex Ferguson's early years in Scottish football management. |
| 1:46.4 | It is full of brilliant detail. |
| 1:48.4 | But the reason why we're focusing on it today is because we want to have a little look at how Ferguson broke the old firm duopoly, |
| 1:55.3 | the Rangers Celtic domination of Scottish football. |
| 1:57.7 | Because, of course, we're in a period where maybe Hart's about to do the same |
| 2:03.9 | as this episode goes out. We're not entirely sure whether that's going to happen or not, but it doesn't |
| 2:07.6 | matter because it's certainly been in discussion all season. Can Hearts do it? Can Celtic and Rangers |
| 2:13.9 | finally be knocked off their perch? Really, the last person who did this seriously was Sir Alex Ferguson, |
| 2:21.0 | and that's why we've got Michael in today to discuss how Fergie did it and those early |
| 2:25.3 | years at Aberdeen. |
| 2:26.2 | This is full of brilliant detail. |
... |
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