Player Profile: Martin Buchan

Mar­tin Buchan

A Gran­ite City local, Mar­tin Buchan was a vital mem­ber of the legendary Aber­deen side of the early 1970s. A reli­able and strong cent­ral half, the prodi­giously tal­en­ted Buchan became the young­est cap­tain ever to lead a club to glory in the Scot­tish FA Cup when The Dons defeated their old foes Celtic 3–1 in the final at Hamp­den Park in 1970. 

After another good cam­paign the fol­low­ing sea­son, Mar­tin Buchan was deservedly named as Scotland’s Player of the Year in 1971. While at Pit­todrie Sta­dium, Buchan accu­mu­lated an impress­ive 134 Scot­tish Foot­ball League appear­ances for Aber­deen before the young and prom­ising pro­spect was brought to Manchester United by Old Traf­ford Head Coach Frank O’Farrell who signed him for an estim­ated trans­fer fee of £125,000 in the spring of 1972. After mak­ing his Eng­lish Foot­ball League bap­tism for Manchester United in a 2–0 loss against Bill Nicholson´s Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur at White Hart Lane in March 1972, the determ­ined and dis­cip­lined cent­ral defender was sub­sequently made skip­per of the team and he would set an exem­plary per­sonal example in the years to come. At the end of the 1973–74 sea­son, how­ever, Manchester United Foot­ball Club found even­tu­ally them­selves releg­ated to the Second Divi­sion along with Nor­wich City and Southamp­ton. But des­pite Manchester United suf­fer­ing releg­a­tion from the Foot­ball League First Divi­sion, the Old Traf­ford board of dir­ect­ors kept faith in man­ager Tommy Docherty and The Red Dev­ils bounced straight back to the top flight of Eng­lish foot­ball the very next sea­son. A highly com­pet­it­ive and con­fid­ent player, Mar­tin Buchan emerged as one of Manchester United’s most depend­able per­formers dur­ing the sev­en­ties and he pro­ceeded to play well over 400 first team matches for the legendary club. Mar­tin Buchan: “When I went down to Old Traf­ford for the first time it only struck me then what a huge club Manchester United are. The Old Traf­ford Sta­dium was massive and everything felt right about the move. Frank O’Farrell was was a great help and you could always speak to him. When I arrived at Manchester United it took some get­ting used to with the dif­fer­ent sur­round­ings and new team mates.” Mar­tin Buchan Career Details: Mar­tin Buchan appeared in three FA Cup finals in four sea­sons between 1976 and 1979 and the Manchester United cap­tain lif­ted the FA Cup trophy when Tommy Docherty´s team defeated bit­ter enemies Liv­er­pool by 2–1 at Wemb­ley Sta­dium in May 1977. The Aber­do­nian spent over eleven suc­cess­ful years with Manchester United before he finally decided to leave Old Traf­ford at the end of the 1982–83 cam­paign after increas­ing prob­lems with his fit­ness. Mar­tin Buchan made his full debut for Scot­land in a 2–0 tri­umph over Por­tugal at Hamp­den Park in Octo­ber 1971 and won a total of senior 34 caps. The Manchester United player also rep­res­en­ted Scot­land in the 1974 and 1978 World Cup Finals in West Ger­many and Argen­tina respect­ively. Mar­tin Buchan Play­ing Career: Aber­deen, Manchester United, Old­ham Athletic.

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