SCOTTISH FOOTBALL'S 50 BEST IMPORTS: Replacing a legend at Pittodrie was a daunting task but Theo Snelders was desperate to make his own mark at Aberdeen

It was probably as warm a welcome as the tall Dutchman was likely to get. In the summer of 1988 the Aberdeen fans were lamenting the departure of legendary goalkeeper Jim Leighton.

A solitary supporter, wearing anything but a smile, wandered up to Pittodrie’s front door as new signing Theo Snelders stepped out.

‘You must be the new goalkeeper,’ the man grunted in what was, at the time for Snelders, a barely-decipherable North-East accent. ‘If you’re half as good a keeper as Leighton we’ll be happy.’

Ton van Dalen, Snelders’ agent, asked the disgruntled fan how he would feel if the new goalie turned out to be even better than Leighton. ‘That’s not possible’ was the blunt response.

Ten months later Aberdeen’s £300,000 signing was picking up his prize as PFA Scotland’s Players’ Player of the Year.

Snelders, who was 24 when he joined the Dons, couldn’t have got off to a better start. ‘It’s your first season in Scottish football and you get this reward from your fellow professionals. I was the first foreign player to win it and the first goalkeeper. It was really special. Amazing.’

Clearly, replacing legend Leighton wasn’t the daunting prospect it had appeared to be?

‘I didn’t look at it that way. I was young and wanted to make a name for myself. I knew how good Jim Leighton had been for Aberdeen. I’d watched him in the (European Cup Winners Cup) quarter final win against Bayern Munich five years before and when they beat Real Madrid in the final.

‘But I’d played 200 games for FC Twente and I was operating at a high level. We’d just finished third in the Dutch league behind Ajax and PSV. 

'Ajax had reached the final of the Cup Winners Cup and PSV had just beaten Benfica to win the European Cup. That summer Holland won the European Championship. So I knew who I was replacing but I also knew the standard of football I was coming from.

‘Alex Smith (Aberdeen manager at the time) came over to Holland and I had a talk with him. Alex Ferguson was looking for a new goalkeeper for Manchester United and he’d decided to go back to his old club for Jim Leighton.

‘I was invited over to Aberdeen for a lookabout but I didn’t need any convincing. As soon as I’d heard they were interested I wanted to go there.’

Other Dutch players felt the same way. Willem van der Ark, Theo ten Caat and Peter van de Ven followed in Snelders’ footsteps. Even Englishman Paul Mason left football in the Netherlands to sign up at Pittodrie and went on to score the goals which won Aberdeen the 1989 League Cup.

There was one fellow countryman, though, whose arrival at Aberdeen came as the most pleasant of surprises.

‘A year and a half after I went to Aberdeen, Hans Gillhaus signed as well. Eighteen months before that he was part of the PSV team which became European champions. The only reason he was moving on was because they had signed (Brazilian World Cup winner) Romario. Hans joined Aberdeen. It’s unbelievable when you look back.’

When Snelders arrived in Scottish football 37 years ago, Rangers were grabbing the title back from Celtic and embarking on a run of nine championship wins on the bounce. For much of that run, Aberdeen were their biggest rivals.

‘When you look at the transfers going on, we weren’t competing at the same level. The most Aberdeen paid was £650,000 for Hans. Rangers were spending a million, a million-and-a-half. At the time we were getting closer and closer to Rangers. In the eight seasons I was at Aberdeen we were league runners-up five times.’

The most painful of those second places was back in 1991 when a point for the Dons at Ibrox on the last day of the league season would have been enough to see them crowned champions. It was all the more agonizing for Snelders because he’d injured his shoulder and was unable to play. Twenty year old Michael Watt deputised and Rangers won 2-0 to take the title.

It was the only winners medal Snelders didn’t collect in his time at Aberdeen but he remains philosophical about that big disappointment at Ibrox.

‘I’d known for quite a few weeks that I wouldn’t be able to play again before the end of the season. 

'Looking back now, we played so well in that campaign. It was a great season until the final day but, yeah, it was a sore one in lots of different ways.’

The season before, of course, had ended in glory for Aberdeen. That never-to-be-forgotten Scottish Cup final against Celtic in which Snelders’ penalty shootout save was immediately followed by Brian Irvine’s sensational spot-kick winner.

Until a matter of weeks ago it was the last time the Dons had lifted football’s oldest trophy. And the big build-up to that dramatic win for Jimmy Thelin’s team has only freshened 61-year-old Snelders’ memories of that amazing 1990 success story.

He laughs. ‘Wow. That was something. We were favourites because we’d beaten them in a league game ten days before. But winning, and the way it happened, was just incredible. My best moment in football.’

The shootout was a marathon. Only two players out of eighteen had failed to score and the teams were still level with the penalty finale having stretched well into the sudden-death stage. There were only two outfield players left to take one. If they couldn’t decide the outcome it was going to be down to the goalkeepers to take a penalty.

‘I remember Pat Bonner (the Celtic keeper) saying to me how well the penalties had been taken so far and, because the shootout was going on and on, it was getting to the point where we would be up next.

‘The Celtic players were winding up their fans to make more noise and upset our concentration. (Mike) Galloway and (Tommy) Coyne were at it. So I turned to the Aberdeen fans to get them going while Celtic were taking their penalties.

‘(Anton) Rogan came up to take his kick but he had to wait. George Smith (the referee) came up to me and said “you cannae do that with the fans” and ordered me not to do it again. That meant Rogan had to wait longer and longer. When he eventually took his penalty I made the save. What a feeling. The best moment of my career. Then Brian stepped up and scored. It was the most amazing feeling.’

Thirty five years on, Snelders was celebrating again as Aberdeen ended their Scottish Cup drought. From afar this time and only after conquering some technical issues.

‘I was watching on a live stream but lost the connection during the second half. I ended up listening on Northsound Radio and just switched on in time for the late Aberdeen equaliser. So that was 1-1 and I thought “right, here we go”.

‘I’d been talking to (former team-mates) Charlie (Nicholas) and Alex (McLeish) a couple of days before the final and they were both hoping Aberdeen would change the shape of the team. The tactics reality worked out. The whole season changed on that final day. To start with they were unbeatable, then they couldn’t win a game and finally they won the cup.’

After Snelders’ eight years at Aberdeen, he had three seasons at Rangers. There were three good reasons he didn’t play too much. Andy Goram, Lionel Charbonnier and Stefan Klos.

‘Playing-wise, obviously, it wasn’t great but I did get a couple of games in the Champions League, I was part of a strong dressing room and then, when you’re 32 and the career is short, you have to look at the financial side.

‘My playing highlights in Scotland were with Aberdeen. Beating Rangers to win the League Cup, that win on penalties against Celtic in the Scottish Cup final and being in the mix for the title just about every season I was there. 

'Those performances got me in the Dutch squad for the 1994 World Cup Finals. That was a great Aberdeen team. I never had any doubts about making the decision to come over from Holland and it proved to be spot-on.’