Scottish football's Godfather Sir Alex Ferguson is in town for Hearts v Aberdeen and Rangers v Celtic

Even at 84, no one has a better eye for football than Sir Alex Ferguson. By the end of this weekend, he will have seen all the title contenders – including Motherwell – live in the space of eight days. It’s probably safe to assume that the last time he attended three Scottish league fixtures in such close succession he was contracted to do so because he was still the manager of Aberdeen Football Club.

It’s fitting that the Pittodrie club are the visitors as Ferguson takes his seat in the Tynecastle main stand on Saturday afternoon. Fitting but also one imagines, slightly dismaying for him. Of the four teams he will be watching this weekend, with Rangers v Celtic also on the legend’s itinerary, Aberdeen - the team with which he is most associated in Scotland - are the also-rans. They are the beleaguered travellers from the North-east, the ones who were involved in a goalless draw described as “90 minutes of football terrorism” with former New Firm rivals Dundee United in midweek.

Ferguson’s priority when he took over at Aberdeen was to instil a belief that meant the team would think nothing of going to Glasgow to win. He succeeded in doing that and more.

Although the stars aligned to produce an unlikely Scottish Cup win as recently as May, these days of swaggering into Glasgow seem a long time ago now for Aberdeen. It’s not as if that’s even the main problem these days. It would be different now if Ferguson was turning up for day one at Pittodrie. Never mind Glasgow, it’s trips to Edinburgh, or more specifically Gorgie, he’d be marking out for special attention.

Aberdeen have not won there since the last game in front of the old main stand, which was demolished in 2017 after 103 years of faithful service. Ian Cathro was in charge of a Hearts side booed off near the end of a trying season. And who masterminded that Aberdeen victory from the opposite dugout? Derek McInnes, of course.

The current Hearts manager is on course to make history by becoming the first manager since Ferguson to lead a non-Old Firm club to the Scottish league title. With ten games left, the Tynecastle side are four points clear of Rangers and six ahead of Celtic, who have a game in hand. “Squeaky bum time” to quote a certain someone. With the Old Firm potentially cutting each other’s throat in Glasgow on Sunday, Hearts’ run-in looks most favourable. Given their record in Gorgie - 14 visits since their last victory - and current travails, Aberdeen is one of those games where it’s tempting to automatically chalk up another three points for Hearts. It would leave the hosts just nine more wins away from becoming Scottish champions for the first time since 1960.

Is Ferguson’s presence a help or hindrance? History already hangs heavily in the air. It’s fascinating to recall that the last time anyone other than Rangers or Celtic lifted the league title, they did so without kicking a ball. While Sunday’s match at Ibrox is very far from inconsequential, it’s rare that an Old Firm fixture does not feel like the biggest game of the weekend.

‘They are not a great side’

When Aberdeen won the league in 1985, the achievement was confirmed on the first day in May following as meaningless an Old Firm game as you can get (albeit three players were still sent off). That was a rearranged game that took place in midweek and the 1-1 draw meant that Aberdeen turned up at, yes, Tynecastle on the Saturday in full celebratory mode. They still swept Hearts aside 3-0 thanks to a Frank McDougall hat-trick to put the seal on the last of Ferguson’s three Scottish league titles.

After a slow start, Hearts were the team to beat the following season before running aground at Dens Park. A 1-0 win over Aberdeen at the end of October, which saw Hearts rise to sixth, signalled their intent, although, as Michael Grant records in his book Fergie Rises, Ferguson wasn’t convinced of their credentials. ‘They are not a great side and a true Aberdeen performance should beat them,” he wrote in his programme notes for the next match against Celtic.

The Pittodrie side certainly enjoyed a comprehensive win over Hearts in the Scottish Cup final at the end of that season, although the opposition were still dazed by the loss of the league title seven days earlier. Ferguson’s prowess when it came to psychology was underlined at Hampden. He instructed his Aberdeen side to wear roses in the buttonholes of their suits, as if to say to Hearts, who hadn’t appeared in a final since the mid 1970s: ‘This might be novel for you, but this is what we do’.

Perhaps more effective was directing some of his players to mill about the Hampden reception area, as if waiting to hand out complimentary tickets to friends and family. Then, when the Hearts team bus arrived, Ferguson told his players to make sure they ladled on the compassion, emphasising how unlucky Hearts had been and that everyone in the Aberdeen camp had been rooting for them…

The devastation of the previous weekend was firmly back in their opponents’ heads. John Hewitt slotted home after five minutes in a 3-0 win, Ferguson’s last trophy in Scotland before a glittering career unfolded at Manchester United.

Amid the grief of losing his wife, Lady Cathy, in 2023, he established a semi-permanent base back in Glasgow, where his brother Martin lives. Ferguson has spread the love around, including accepting an invite to attend last Saturday night's match between St Mirren, another former club, and Motherwell. He has been seen most often at Ibrox, home of the team he supported as a boy and later played for. However, his relationship with Rangers is complicated given his admission, in a film about his life, that he “wanted to put the knife into” them as Aberdeen manager, due to his suspicion he was bombed out of the Ibrox side because Cathy was Catholic.

So where do his loyalties lie in the current title race? As a guest of Hearts, or at least of McInnes, is he not obligated to cheer for the Jambos against Aberdeen, as weird as that might seem?

McInnes, who first got to know Ferguson when a player at Rangers, seemed mindful of speaking out of turn when asked this very question on Wednesday. “I get the feeling, I kind of think… I'm pretty sure that is the case (that he is rooting for Hearts), but I don't know if he's phoning other managers!” he said, coyly. “But it’ll be good to see him.”

McInnes added: “He knows all my players. He talks as if he knows them intimately and I tell my players that, and they can’t believe that he actually knows our game inside out.” As expected, the suspicion Ferguson has transferred his loyalties to Hearts, at least temporarily, isn’t going down tremendously well elsewhere. “An added kick in the balls,” grumbled one fan on an Aberdeen forum this week.