It could hardly be said that Aberdeen’s League Cup campaign has been convincing.
Despite having played 150 of their 180 minutes holding a lead, against opponents handicapped by division, or in numbers, the Dons have contrived to make life far more difficult for themselves than it needed to be.
What certainly can be said is that, of the 45 sides who started out on the road to Hampden, only four are still in with a chance of lifting the trophy – and Aberdeen have just about done enough to be one of them.
When they set foot on the National Stadium turf, their semi-final will start at 0-0, and they will not be weighed down by the shaky drudgery which brought them there.
Let’s not forget – the route of late Jim Forrest and Dons to 1970 Scottish Cup final was inauspicious one
With the sad news of the passing of Jim Forrest, many pre-match thoughts were of the successful Scottish Cup adventure of 1970, and that was not a story which carried any great early promise either.
Forrest’s fifth-minute opener did not insulate Aberdeen from enduring a frigid evening keeping out Division Two strugglers Clydebank.
But equally, nor were the boos which met the unfamiliarly blue-and-white-striped Dons’ barely deserved win still resonating when they wrapped ribbons of a much better-looking hue around the trophy’s handles precisely two months later.
There will be no scope for such dozily profligate frittering of advantages in the tournament’s final phase, when the tariff will crank up a good few degrees. But what is great about cup football is that the possibility always exists – no matter what has gone before, all the marbles are won on the day.
Few and far between are the pictures of cup-winning heroes that were not painted over grim and hazardous travails along the way.
Nothing worth having ever came easy. Even, as here, with the best efforts of circumstance.
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