“SOME of us,” an Aberdeen fan said on the morning of the match, “have gone without our dinners for a week for this.

”Then again, he may not have been entirely serious: the Evening Times reporter who spoke to him wrote that it was said with a twinkle in his eye. That Saturday - April 24, 1954 - saw Aberdeen fans by the thousands pour into Glasgow for their team’s Scottish Cup final against Celtic at Hampden.

They had started queuing at 10.30 the previous night for the first train, which left at 2.45am. In all, 20 special trains arrived from the Granite City (some with standing room only), and these, combined with the normal services, made that day one of the busiest ever experienced by Buchanan Street station.

The “lilting accents of Aberdeenshire,” the Evening Times said, “were heard in restaurants and bars.”Thousands of Dons supporters sought out touts in order to buy tickets. .

Aberdeen badly wanted to win. The previous year they had lost the cup final to Rangers after a replay. On April 10, 1954 they had exacted some revenge, beating Rangers 6-0 in the semi-final to set up this match against Celtic.

But the Dons supporters’ hopes that their team could win the cup for the first time since 1947 were dashed, Celtic winning 2-1 in a game described by the Evening Times as “hardly a classic but nonetheless full of pace and incident.”