Aberdeen FC  (the Dons, the Dandies) is a football club based in Scotland’s third most populous city. The original Aberdeen FC was formed in October 1881 moving in 1899,  to Pittodrie which remains the club’s home ground. The club merged with two other sides in the city, Orion and Victoria United in 1903, and was elected to the Second Division the following season. At the end of that first season, despite having finished 7th out of 12 teams, Aberdeen was elected to the newly  expanded First Division and have been in the top tier of Scottish football ever since, a record shared only with Celtic.  The club did not enjoy their first period of sustained success until the late 1940s and early 1950s. They defeated Hibernian 2-1 in the 1947 Scottish Cup final and won their first Scottish League title in 1955. 

Aberdeen went on to win the League Cup beating St. Mirren in 1955/56 and reached another Scottish Cup final in 1959. The club remained a major force in Scottish football during the 1960s and 1970s regularly challenging for domestic honours; however, the only trophy won was the League Cup in 1976, under Ally MacLeod. The club’s greatest period of success to date took place in the 1980s under the management of Alex Ferguson who led Aberdeen to the Premier Division titles in 1980, 1984 and 1985, Scottish Cup success in 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1986 and League Cup victories in 1986. The club’s greatest achievement came in 1983 when they beat Real Madrid 2-1 in the final of the European Cup Winner’s Cup. This was followed by the capture of the European Super Cup in December of that year, when SV Hamburg were beaten over two legs. The club struggled to maintain this level of success after Ferguson’s departure in 1986 with Scottish Cup success in 1990 and League Cup wins in 1990 and 1996 ther high points. The low point came in the 1999/2000 season, when they finished last in the Premier division only to be saved by the expansion of the SPL to twelve teams and the fact that Falkirk's stadium did not meet SPL requirements. A trophy drought ended in 2014 when Aberdeen defeated Inverness Caledonian Thistle on penalties to win the Scottish League Cup. Aberdeen enjoyed their record victory in 1923, when they beat Peterhead 13-0; they suffered their worst defeat in November 2010 when they lost 9-0 to Celtic.  Willie Miller holds the record for League appearances with the club, having played in 556 matches for them between 1973 and 1990.