On the football pitch, Aberdeen have made great strides in recent years.

It is sometimes easy to forget just how far the team from the Granite City have come in a short space of time, given the tumultuous days not that long ago off three ninth-placed finishes on the bounce only bettered by a spot a place higher the next year during the 2012-13 season. The introduction of Derek McInnes as manager, who took over at Pittodrie at the tail end of that campaign, was undoubtedly a shrewd appointment from an Aberdeen board under pressure from a fan base to deliver some sort of success. A third-place finish - it would have been second if not for a last-gasp Craig Reid Motherwell goal for the visitors to leapfrog their hosts on the last game of the season - before successive runners-up spots in the Ladbrokes Premiership were earned. A League Cup was also grabbed along the way.

The yearning for more from the north east continues to bellow out, though, the demand for progress booming out from the tired stands surrounding a patch of grass just a couple of hundred yards away from the North Sea.

But for a club that prides itself on its tradition and past, a move away from this massive part of a history is a must if they are to continue to harvest accolades on the football park while cultivating more money, more supporters and more prosperity off of it.

This week the planning application for Aberdeen's new 20,000 stadium and sport campus on the outskirts of the city at Kingsford. It is understood the total project will hit the £50million mark, with £40m being spent on the new stadium, fan zone cafe and museum with around £10m on training facilities.

It will signal the start of a nervous but exciting few months for Duncan Fraser, the club's chief executive, as he waits to receive the green light to kickstart the next chapter in Aberdeen's tale, one that he believes has the potential to be the making of a whole new success story. A new Don, if you will.

“Our planning application will go in this week. That’s for both the training facility and the stadium," said Fraser, who joined the players and coaching staff in Dubai for a winter break. “The training facility is the first priority. You just have to look at the facilities here in Dubai to see the difference is makes.

“We use Balgownie and it’s windswept up there, and although we have a lot of assistance from a lot of other people – we have a tie in with Robert Gordon college – bussing players from A to B isn’t great

“I think if we have our own facility where everyone reported in the morning it would make a huge difference. It’s also important when you’re trying to bring young players through.

“It means, particularly when there are school holidays, you can get the youths in at the same time as the first-team and it gives them a sense of bonding. Again, you’re not getting up in the morning thinking ‘where are we training today?’ For the manager that’s hugely important and I understand that.

“If you asked him what he wanted more than anything at the moment he’d say he wanted that up and running as soon as possible. Hopefully with the application going in it’ll be heard in the summer. Planning permission aside, we can crack on with it.”

He added: "Everyone talks about how Hearts having a great support and they do. But they have a number of around 16,000 which works. One of the disadvantages about Pittodrie is that it’s 20,500. It’s supply and demand and people work out on their own mind what they do and don’t need to do to get a ticket.

“I think with a stadium, if you design it with the right facilities with the right numbers, you could hit it right. I also think you get that five-year window with a new stadium. Youngsters start going and that’s the time you have to keep them by making sure you’re successful on the park. If you do that then you’ve got a right good chance.”

The reasons for leaving Pittodrie, Aberdeen's home for almost 114 years since they came into existence. Things have moved on a bit since then - at least two new kettles have been purchased - but the deficiencies of this old lady of Scottish football were highlighted only too well - or perhaps not - as generator failure last month plunged the game between Aberdeen and Motherwell into darkness. Still, going every second Saturday to Pittodrie is a way of life for many, a fact Fraser understands, but one that must be adapted if the club are to move with the times.

"People get really emotionally tied to stadiums, and I don’t disagree with that. But it’s not about us as individuals," he said. “It’s about the people coming to see Aberdeen in 15 and 20 years’ time. Younger people in particular want to see something fresh and see something new.”

Aberdeen are now debt free but coming up with the cash to pay for such an ambitious development won't come on the cheap. It is an issue Fraser is not shying away from, but he is encouraged.

“It’s like the chicken and egg scenario. Until it comes reality and you get planning permission, that becomes the first thing. It makes it easier."

“We are working on the funding model just now and talking to a number of people just now. We have four or five ways we see that coming together.

“It will involve shares, it will involve a degree of private placement and it will involve all of the proceeds coming out of the Pittodrie site as well. With no debt that’s a very major positive.

“I do believe it’s possible. I certainly wouldn’t have embarked on it if it wasn’t, but it will be a challenge.