Aberdeen 3 - 0 Heart of Midlothian

While Aberdeen FC's prudent economic policy allows them, from time to time, to splash out considerable sums to buy new players, as they did in the recent close season with the purchase of Peter Hetherston, Colin Woodthorpe and Billy Dodds, the club's basic strategy must, of neces¬sity, put the emphasis on grooming their own star players. Encouragement in this respect was forthcoming in the opening Premier Reserve League fixture of the new season when four members of last year's title-winning youth squad - Greig McCulloch, Kevin Christie, Craig Ireland and Stephen Glass - all made notable contributions to the young Dons' 3-0 victory over Hearts at Pittodrie on Monday of last week. All four were introduced to Premier Reserve football in the second half of last season and seem capable of establishing themselves as regular choices at this level this term. Against a Tynecastle reserve side which included a number of players of first-team status, the Pittodrie youngsters were far from overshadowed by more experienced club-mates such as Ray McKinnon, Joe Miller, Scott Booth, Andy Roddie and Peter Hetherston, who were given a reserve-team outing to sharpen their match fitness. Assistant managers Roy Aitken (who made one of his occasional appearances in this game) and Drew Jarvie were enthusiastic in their communication of the youngsters' performances.

The young Dons' 1-0 interval lead was a poor reflection of their superi¬ority. Apart from Booth's 16th minute-goal with a diving header, the Pittodrie side created a lot of good chances and could have been further ahead. Defender Ireland showed the way eight minutes after the interval when he scored with a powerful header following a Miller corner kick and two minutes later Hetherston produced an equally spectacular strike from the edge of the box after a corner had been partially cleared.