IT is about a foot and a half in length, is heavily stained, smells a bit and would almost certainly ignite in an inferno if it went within about a mile of a naked flame.

But the small boy’s scarf bought 40 years ago today for about £1.50 when Aberdeen brought the Cup Winner’s Cup back to the city is still going strong.

Well, strong would be pushing it a bit, but at least it’s still intact and continues to be worn at games to this day.

The cheap scarf, proclaiming Aberdeen as cup winners after beating the mighty Real Madrid in the final, remains as cherished to this day as it was when it was purchased outside Pittodrie on May 12, 1983.

Quite what the scarf seller would have done if they had lost the final is unclear but if he had set them all alight on a bonfire, it would probably still be burning today.

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The material used to make it is unspecified, but it is as cheap and tacky as it’s possible to get – but to be fair it’s still alive and kicking.

It has never been washed on account that it would probably explode if it came into contact with washing powder and is held together purely by beer stains and bits of pie.

But would I part with it? Not in a million years.

My son now has it and wears it to the games to this day. Given his size, it is worn like a cravat and he cannot speak with it on, which admittedly is not a bad thing.

He received it when I accidentally “dropped” it 12 rows ahead of my seat at Hampden after the debacle of losing 4-3 to Queen of the South in a cup semi-final.

The last thing I wanted to see again was the scarf, but my seven-year-old dutifully clambered over the seats to retrieve it saying simply: “But it’s the Gothenburg scarf.”

He has had it ever since and he will never part with it, even after being offered £400 for it from a fellow fan on a train back from Falkirk after a game.

It may never end up on Antiques Roadshow but it clearly has a price, although I doubt Fiona Bruce would like to touch it, preferring to just “admire” it from afar.

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Thursday, of course, was the 40th anniversary of the game in Gothenburg and today the players and manager will receive the Freedom of the City for their magnificent achievement.

For those of us who lived the journey with them, it is still hard to fathom quite what went on that year.

Even getting tickets for the games was an adventure in itself, with a voucher system introduced from previous games.

This saw a crowd of around 18,000 of us turn up to Pittodrie on a cold Tuesday night to see the reserves take on St Mirren reserves.

I have no idea what the score was, but it guaranteed the extra voucher I needed to at least get in the overnight queue for tickets for the Bayern Munich quarter-final.

A 5am start, on a school day too, was enough to purchase one of the gold dust tickets and ensure my place at the greatest night Pittodrie has ever seen.

I attended every home game on the way, but didn’t make the final as I had school – although every pupil in the city was let out to attend the trophy parade.

To this day, I have no idea how many folk were there but the entire North-east seemed to be and the bus took hours from the airport to the city centre. Some things never change at least.

Likewise, the previous night after the cup was won, thousands thronged Union Street and there were so many car horns being blared, it could have been Milan. Maybe. At a push.

It was during the parade that I bought the scarf and like the buyer, it has been round the block a a bit in the intervening years.

It has been held aloft during League title wins, Scottish Cup victories and a few months after Gothenburg when the European Super Cup was won. It was also in Darvel, summing up perfectly the highs and lows of football.

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Aberdeen remains the only Scottish team to win two European trophies and is the last team to defeat Real Madrid in a European final.

It also has the dubious distinction of being the only club to be officially ranked as the both the best and the worst team in Europe. Not at the same time, obviously.

Legends like Willie Miller, Alex McLeish, Peter Weir, Eric Black and John McMaster are still spoken about in hushed, reverential tones across the city to this day.

As of course is the manager Sir Alex Ferguson, but no-one is revered as much as goalscorer John Hewitt, the local lad turned hero who still gets drinks bought for him by strangers.
Sadly it will never happen again and should be cherished - just like the scarf.

The scarf, like the club, is in safe hands now. The glory of Gothenburg has been passed on to a new generation. They may not have been alive to see it but they understand what it means and how important it is.

There will be Celtic fans with scarves from Lisbon and Rangers supporters with ones around from Barcelona too. And rightly so.

Every fan of the clubs from the age of 4 upwards knows what they mean and treat the achievements with pride and respect.

Over time the scarves will be passed onto the next generation - the passing of the torch onwards and upwards. 

Every single club in the world have momentos from something important in their history that have been passed down.

it's what football is all about at the end of the day. To appreciate  and embrace the glories of the past and hope they will be surpassed in the future. Otherwise there's no real point in going every week. 

As for Aberdeen's manager at the time, I wonder what happened to him after he left?