Aberdeen legend Andy Considine has returned to the Dons following his playing retirement, The Press and Journal can reveal.
The 37-year-old, the fourth-highest appearance-maker in Aberdeen history with 571 games, retired from professional football this summer after a two-year spell with St Johnstone.
Banchory defender Considine departed Aberdeen in summer 2022 after 25 years in the Pittodrie outfit’s youth ranks and first-team, when the offer of a new contract was controversially withdrawn by then-manager Jim Goodwin.
However, having now hung up his boots, the ex-Scotland international is back at his boyhood club, having taken a part-time under-16s coaching role at Cormack Park.
Considine has been in the position for two weeks.
Considine’s former Dons team-mate Jonny Hayes was previously one of the club’s U16s coaches.
Hayes, also 37, ended his second spell as an Aberdeen player at the end of last season, with Considine’s fellow 2014 League Cup-winner simultaneously leaving his youth role in the Reds’ academy.
When Hayes left, Aberdeen confirmed they had offered the retired winger “a senior full-time position within the youth academy, however, he has opted to pursue senior coaching opportunities at professional level elsewhere.”
It was subsequently announced Hayes had taken up a coaching post at Celtic, where he played from 2017 to 2020.
Last season, working under Hayes, another ex-Dons midfielder Stuart Duff and Mark Emslie, Aberdeen U16s won a league and Scottish Cup double.
It was the second season on the spin the Reds’ U16s had won their Club Academy Scotland league.
The full-time youth role offered to Hayes – as one of the Aberdeen Youth Academy’s phase leads – has since been taken by Callum McDonald, while in other academy changes, coach Mark Slater has stepped up to become head of youth academy coaching, filling the gap left when Stuart Glennie was promoted to academy director.
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