On Thursday night Alex Smith dispatched his nephew Kenneth to the Granite City to accept his entry to the Aberdeen Hall of Fame instead. The ten-hour time difference meant that recognition came when he was tucked up in bed.

If a 60-year career taught the former Dons boss anything, it’s the dangers of getting carried away by personal baubles. Whenever he was lauded in the past, football had a habit of bringing him back to earth with a bump.

“In 2005 I got an MBE from the Queen and that was wonderful,” he tells the Fixture. “But the same day that I got the MBE I got sacked by Ross County.

“I had never had an argument with the owner or seen it coming - Roy McGregor was a nice man.

“But I think he met wee John Robertson in the street and wee John had just left Hearts and that was it. I was out.”

His treatment at Aberdeen was equally brutal,  Thursday marking a reconciliation of sorts. In his second season as co-manager with Jocky Scott Smith he won a League Cup, adding the Scottish Cup six months later. A single point against Rangers would have added a league title on the final day of 1990/91. When they failed to get it, his card was marked.

When a drab home defeat to Hibs in February 1992 prompted a band of angry little men to gather on the steps of Pittodrie bearing pitchforks, Smith had the last laugh. He kept working, hanging in there, until 2018 when he resigned from his last post as technical director of Falkirk to move down under with his wife Janice and be closer to his step son Alan and two grandchildren.

Learning his trade in an era when heavyweights of the game like Stein, Shankley, Busby, Ferguson, McLean and McNeill stuck their chin out and dared clubs to sack them, he retired on his own terms at a time of his choosing.

Before moving to Queensland he was the go to man for media outlets seeking a quote or a comment on the latest sacked manager. Chairman of the League Manager’s Association he would pass judgement on another injustice bestowed upon a younger colleague by a trigger-happy chairman.

These days he simmers in silence, but notes the rising stock of a Scottish manager he took under his wing at Falkirk 16 years ago.

“Steven Pressley is a top manager now. If we are looking for a manager of Scotland soon, well we’ve got one.”

A slightly brash, inexperienced figure in 2010 Big Elvis is quietly changing perceptions and opinions. Wednesday night’s defenestration of Kilmarnock took the dark blues back to fourth in the Premiership and Smith speaks of his former protege in the tones you’d expect of a proud uncle.

“Steven has a career that can back that up, both as a player and as a manager. He played for Rangers, he played for Hearts, he played for Celtic, he played for Dundee United and he has been successful everywhere he has been.

“I don’t want to be unfair to the fellow in the position at the moment, but Steven has shown with that Dundee team that he is ready to manage Scotland.

“The biggest thing he has got is personality. Personality and a solid knowledge of the game.”

He’s too modest to point out that he taught Pressley all he knows, or dwell on the fact that his managerial career prompted a dinner in Aberdeen’s Marcliffe Hotel to induct him in to the Dons Hall of Fame alongside Robert Connor, Paul Mason, Andrew Considine and Jim Warrender.

A toiling Aberdeen team play Rangers in the League Cup semi-final tonight and the plaudits for Smith, Mason and Connor served as a poignant reminder of better days; an era when the Dons took on a star studded Rangers team at Hampden in the 1989/89 final and beat them. Mason scored twice as Aberdeen ended the glorious eighties in much the same way as they started them.

“Sir Alex Ferguson phoned me up from Manchester at the time and said to me, “I’ve a player called Paul Mason you could have a look at in Holland,” Smith recalls. “He’s a Liverpool boy and he played for Everton where he broke his leg.’

“Alex asked me if I’d have a look at him and give him a run down. He wanted him as a full-back.

“He played well and beat the team they were playing 5-2. He got two goals and played really well and Alex said, ‘what do you think?’

“I says, ‘oh he’s a good player, a quality player. But he’s not for you Alex. Not for Manchester United, he’s not physical enough.’

“Alex says, ‘come on you…..'

“I agreed with him that if Paul hadn’t signed for him in a fortnight then I would take him. And that’s what I did….”

YouTube highlights of the 89 final serve as a sobering reminder of the quality running through that Aberdeen team.

Captain Willie Miller chats to opposite number Terry Butcher as they leave the tunnel, keeper Theo Snelders just ahead of David Robertson. Alex McLeish and Charlie Nicholas follow beside Connor and four months later full back Stewart McKimmie would return to Hampden to score the winning goal for Scotland against world champions Argentina.

The manager wasn’t bad either. Smith had been a front man for 20 years with Stenhousemuir, Stirling Albion and St Mirren - “a decent apprenticeship” - and pitched up alongside co-manager with Scott as belt and braces replacements for the misplaced Ian Porterfield.

“We were the equal of Rangers for a while,’ he says now. “But, you know, in Scotland when you are competing against either of the big two that you are always going to be grinding against officialdom.”

He felt that the day his team needed a point at Ibrox to win the title in May ‘91. Like Hearts in May, they fell agonisingly short of the line. Like Hearts in May, they felt a sense of injustice.

“I try not to think about that. That team were screwed a little bit.

“We beat St Johnstone in the second last game, Rangers lost to Motherwell and then we get to the last game just needing a point…”

In Aberdeen they call a biased ‘Weegie press’ for anything and everything and Smith, a Stirling boy who grew up with Billy Bremner, remembers a week of media ‘hustle and bustle’ in the lead up to the big showdown.

“It was unbelievable, the press boys. You know what they’re like and the pressure was heavy.

“We had handled it all and played better than Rangers under pressure and when we got there we got a fiery reception off the bus.

“Rangers were redeveloping Ibrox, doing up the dressing rooms and we had to get changed in a portacabin.

“In the first half hour we were giving them a doing and missed two real chances, which was our doing.

“Peter van de Ven was through and couldn’t finish. Hans Gilhaus had an even better header chance but took his eye off it.”

Aberdeen’s inexperienced goalkeeper Michael Watt was a late replacement for the injured Theo Snelders. In an old Daily Record article, former Rangers striker Mark Hateley speaks of mistaking the rookie keeper in the tunnel for a ball boy and telling teammate Gary Stevens to hang a ball up in the air to give him the chance to ‘ask a question’ of Watt. Hateley clattering into the Dons keeper in the air early in the game, prompting lengthy treatment.

“We got the boy up and got him going again and instead of doing what he should have done by booking Hateley or sending him off the referee gave Rangers a corner,” says a miffed Smith.

“Hateley scored a really good header before half-time and I don’t think he should have been on the field at the time.”

Another Rangers title was secured when Watt spilled a Mo Johnston shot at the feet of Hateley and the England international tapped in for 2-0.

“In my opinion, Mark was in an offside position when he scored,” claims Smith, proving that still waters run deep. “A really hard game and still a hard game to think about all these years later.

“I think we should have got a result that day. Maybe I’m being unfair to Rangers but we should have won the game ourselves and let the opportunity go by.”

A run of poor games the following season brought the sack and when he sees Stephen Robinson under pressure now - half of the top flight managers are - he frets for where the game is headed.

At least in his day Dons fans were prepared to wait until the New Year before they started calling for the manager’s head on a platter.

“I know how football works and sometimes you don’t get the credit for what you do.

“We hardly lost a game to Rangers or Celtic in that period of time. We had a great record against both of them.

“But we were beaten 1-0 by Hibs in the last minute and there were supporters on the terracing shouting, ‘Smith must go.’

“It began on one bit of terracing, spread round and at full-time there were a couple of dozen standing at the door. We had hardly lost a game but suddenly that became a chorus of, ‘Smith must go.”

“I look now and managers can get sacked after seven games. It’s ridiculous.”

The only people asking awkward questions these days are his grandkids. Australia offers peace, quiet and anonymity, not to mention respite from the named storms blowing the roof from the garden shed and nudging boats on to pavements.

“The weather is good” he admits. “But two weeks ago we had a hail stone storm battering my car as I drove along the road. They were like rocks.”

Lose to the team Aberdeen love to beat more than any other at Hampden tonight and Stephen Robinson will know precisely how that felt.