Lee Richardson

Aberdeen v Rangers

Scottish Cup Final

29th May 1993

Players don't appear in Cup Finals every day, but in the 1992-93 season, Player-Assistant-Manager Lee Richardson played in two! Having moved North of the Border from Blackburn Rovers to Aberdeen exactly 10 years ago this very week, Rico enjoyed an incredible first season at Pittodrie, The Dons finished runners up in the League to Rangers despite beating the Blues 1-0 in the next to last match of the league season. Willie Miller's men beat Celtic in the Semi Final of the League (Skol) Cup, losing to The Gers in the Hampden Park Final, Lee was a sub that day.

They also made the Final of the more prestigious Scottish FA Cup Final having disposed of Hamilton Accies (4-1 at home), Dundee United (2-0 at home), they drew 1-1 on their own ground with the now defunct Clydebank but won the replay 4-3 in the only tie that Lee didn't play in.

The last four pitched Aberdeen with Hibernian at Tynecastle, home of Hearts, the reds beat the greens 1-0 with Scott Booth bagging the only goal whilst Rangers beat Hibs Edinburgh neighbours Hearts 2-1 in their Celtic Park hosted match.

Aberdeen's last two games before a fortnight's gap leading up to the Final had seen morale boosting wins over Rangers and at Dundee United, 4-1 was the score at Tannadice, whilst opponents Rangers, having lost to their Cup Final opponents, struggled to beat Falkirk 2-1 in their last League match though they could boast the League title and League Cup double already being in the bag and they'd enjoyed a good season in the European Champions League finishing runners up in their semi final group to ultimate winners Marseille.

Lee had played a full part in The Dons success, starting 28 of the 36 games after his arrival, though his scoring record was as it still is, patchy, Aberdeen scored 87 goals in their 44 League games, only two of them to our Assistant Manager, at Dundee and at home to Hibs, both games were won.

50,715 people packed in to Celtic Park for the Cup Final, the sides lined up as follows:

Aberdeen: Snelders, McKimmie, Wright, Grant, Irvine, McLeish, Richardson, Mason, Booth, Shearer, Paatelainen.

Rangers: Goram, McCall, Robertson, Gough, McPherson, Brown, Murray, Ferguson, Durrant, Hateley, Huistra.

"I remember we didn't play as well as we expected to," recalls Rico, "We were really hoping that would be our day after finishing second in everything else. We went 2-0 behind then I scored a rather fortuitous goal, a shot from outside the box which deflected past Andy Goram. The day went pretty quickly, I remember the pipers before most of all, about 50 pipers, that was fantastic".