Aberdeen 1-0 St Johnstone

Despite showers earlier in the day, summer sunshine greeted the players, officials and supporters of Aberdeen and St Johnstone at Brechin today, as Glebe Park hosted a pre-season friendly between the teams ranked 2nd and 4th in last season’s SPFL Premiership.

This was to be the final warm-up game before both sides would head overseas to tackle their first round opponents in the first qualifying round of this season’s Europa Cup. Aberdeen are to travel to Macedonia to face KF Shkendija with St Johnstone also embarking on a lengthy journey, in this case to Armenia to face Alashkert FC – with both ties scheduled to place on Thursday 2nd July.

For Dons fans, this game was to see the debut at half-time of Liverpool loanee goalkeeper Danny Ward whilst for Saints fans it was an opportunity to see new signing striker Jon Sutton in action in St Johnstone colours.

In front of over 1200 spectators, both sides fielded strong starting XI’s, added to by the now customary extensive substitute listing. In a match largely devoid of intense goalmouth action, fans had to wait until the 71st minute for the game’s only goal, following the award of a penalty by referee Andrew Dallas after he deemed that Niall McGinn had been felled right at the edge of the box. As had been the case twice during The Dons’ friendly clash with Brechin City only 4 days earlier, striker Adam Rooney stepped forward to confidently and competently drill the ball low into the net – sending Saints keeper Alan Mannus the wrong way in the process.

After full-time, both teams left Glebe Park with warm wishes from everyone connected with Brechin City for their respective European challenges.