Saturday is an historic occasion as the Red Army of all ages return to stand in the Merkland End.

The Merkland Family Stand was originally known as the King Street End and at one point was the only covered area apart from the Main Stand at Pittodrie.

When in 1934 the cover was built over the King Street end of the ground and was hugely popular with the support.

That allowed the Aberdeen songsters a home and a place to congregate for matches.

Of course that was in the days before any kind of segregation and the only seats that could be found were in the back of the Main Stand.

In 1965 the corner of the King Street End was extended before the major development of the Main Stand in 1968. The old Pittodrie enclosure, which had remained a standing area in front of the seats since it was built, was removed to make way for new seating and dugouts. The name of the ground was also changed at that point from Pittodrie Park to Pittodrie Stadium.

There was also a proposal at that time to erect a cover over the South Terrace but the club shelved these plans, as the £250,000 projected costs were prohibitive.

Right up until the 1970s many supporters moved from one end of the ground to the other – Aberdeen supporters keen to see their side usually in the second half shoot towards the Beach End in the days when moving around the ground was possible. In those days there was no segregation.

In February 1971 a fire broke out during the night in the Main Stand and office areas, which led to the administration and the dressing room facilities being totally destroyed. It was a severe blow for the club as apart from anything else, a lot of club records and memorabilia were destroyed in the fire. It took the club until the start of the following season to rebuild that part of the ground. Later that year bench seating was fitted in to the King Street End, while two years later the Beach End was also fitted with the basic benches, which certainly served a purpose at that time. It was when the bench seating was fitted in the King Street End that the Aberdeen songsters migrated to the Beach End; their preference to stand at matches became clear.

A tradition that endured since the 1940’s had gone.

It was not until 1975 when the first segregated game was against Rangers in a Scottish Cup tie; the last 30,000 crowd at Pittodrie. The Aberdeen support were housed in the Beach End with visiting supporters in the ‘Paddock’.

In 1978 the seating was completed in the South Terrace area and Pittodrie could then boast of becoming the first all-seated stadium in the country.

On 9th October 1985 for the visit of Dundee Utd in the League Cup semi final, the new Merkland Stand was opened for the first time. The stand had been completely rebuilt over the summer of 1985 as new facilities had been introduced with a sunshine roof, new toilet facilities, a large refreshment bar and improved area for the disabled. The number of turnstiles was also increased from six to ten. The new Merkland Stand as it was now named was formerly known as the Paddock.

Originally there had been plans to make the Merkland Stand a two-tier structure but costs and reluctance from the local to council to grant planning permission scupper those plans. There were also suggestions that there should have been a cantilever structure put in place, but club secretary Ian Taggart stated that the cost would have been prohibitive and that there was simply not enough space to achieve this.