How Alex McLeish went from Aberdeen to Birmingham City

Nov 28 2007 By Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

McLEISH and Miller may sound like a comedy double-act - but to centre-forwards in the 1980s they were no laughing matter.

They were the defensive rocks that underpinned Aberdeen's smashing of Scotland's Old Firm and spiralled them to European glory.

Alex McLeish (the ginger colossus) and Willie Miller (with the 'tache) were formidable for Sir Alex Ferguson's upstarts.

Three League titles, five Scottish Cups, two League Cups and the European Cup Winners' Cup defeat of Real Madrid in rain-soaked Gothenburg in 1983 came their way.

McLeish took the captaincy on Miller's retirement and was named Scottish player of the year in 1990, when he played in this third and final World Cup.

He appeared 77 times for Scotland and when his playing career was over, a move into management was inevitable.

Like many of the Pittodrie alumni, McLeish learned a great deal from Ferguson, who held him in high esteem.

In 1994, after 17 years at Aberdeen, McLeish took over at Motherwell and surprised everyone by leading them to runners-up in the SPL.

The next two seasons were battles against relegation and in 1998 McLeish moved to struggling Hibernian. He came in too late to prevent their relegation but he guided the Edinburgh team back to the SPL by winning the First Division Championship.

In his third campaign, Hibernian finished behind the Old Firm and, at one stage, looked like genuine challengers for the title.

They reached the Scottish Cup final and McLeish's work was noted by Rangers- and he moved to Ibrox in December 2001.

McLeish busied himself with media work after his exit there but was thrust back into the spotlight when Walter Smith quit Scotland for Rangers 10 months ago. He carried on the good work started by Smith and, utilising Scotland's resources in a pragmatic way, gave real hope of qualifying Euro 2008.

In September, James McFadden's superb long-distance strike regis-tered a 1-0 win against France in Paris, one of the greatest results in Scotland's history.

Scotland then stumbled in Georgia and Italy shattered their dreams with a 2-1 win at Hampden.

Although Scotland restored their pride with such a gallant qualifying campaign, missing out on travelling Switzerland and Austria in the summer ultimately meant they lost their manager to Blues.