Scottish football has lost great entertainer but fitting match can pay proper tribute with one thing

Step forward Jimmy Calderwood, or “Jim Calderwood” as he was known then. Many of the answers given are stock answers of the time, such as favourite TV shows – “Most detective series and any sports programmes” – and favourite singers – “Diana Ross, Neil Diamond”. Knowing what we know now, another response doesn’t generate too much surprise. Favourite other team? “Glasgow Rangers.”

But one answer does stop you in your tracks. Question: “Personal ambition?” Answer? “To have a long and happy life with my family.”

One wonders if Calderwood would say he was permitted to fulfil that wish or not. It's unbearably poignant, but probably not.

Diagnosed with early onset dementia at 60, the sad news emerged on Sunday evening that the popular Glaswegian had died aged 69 after several years of being laid low by the cruel condition.

He was just 62 when he sat in a PR company’s office in Glasgow and announced he was suffering from younger onset Alzheimer’s disease and had been for some time. His last role in football, a short stint as manager of Dutch club De Graafschap, ended three years earlier. So his involvement in football finished in his mid-to-late 50s. His last meaningful post at a Scottish club was with Ross County, when he was 55. Not much older than someone like Derek McInnes is now.

We deserved more Jimmy Calderwood. He deserved more. But what we did get was four-up-front, perma-tanned level fun. It was also unforgettable, for fans of Dunfermline and Aberdeen especially.

Kudos, then, to Premier Sports pundits Michael Stewart and Alan Hutton for managing to conjure up a Scottish Cup fifth round tie between these two teams. In a fairly humdrum set of ties, this one stands out a mile along with Ayr United v Hibernian.

The Aberdeen matchday programme is already one of the best in the land. I’m already curious how they will pay tribute to the former manager, who gave them such good times as a return to Europe's top-ish table. Watching footage of the 2-2 Uefa Cup draw with Bayern Munich on St Valentine's night in 2008 still makes the hairs on the arm stand on end.

I remember writing how Calderwood burnt every bridge from Dunfermline’s Carnegie Hall to Maryculter when leaving the East End Park club to join Aberdeen. The deal was struck before Dunfermline played Celtic in the Scottish Cup final in 2004.

Time's a great healer. In any case, he could hardly say no, particularly since it was Willie Miller, then Aberdeen’s director of football and an old boyhood pal from Glasgow, doing the luring. He also did the firing five years later. It was a savage blow to Calderwood, one he told me he hadn’t seen coming. I also remember him telling me about scouting trips to England while with Aberdeen. Calderwood and his assistants Jimmy Nicholl and Sandy Clark in a car going over Shap Summit en route north in the wee sma’ hours. They’d take turns to keep whoever was driving entertained.

He’s on another journey now. Too soon, really. But he’s left his mark and then some. Bring on the Jimmy Calderwood derby at Pittodrie next month and pray he gets the most appropriate tribute ever, which is a very simple one really: lots of goals.