The winners and losers of the late 1980s
The first half of the 1980s had seen a shift in Scottish football, from the dominance of Glasgow towards new-found strength at Aberdeen and Dundee United. But could this trend last for the rest of the decade?
By the 1985-1986 season, league success was by no means easy for any of the top four Scottish clubs, and although Celtic fared better than Rangers in their league challenges at the time, they both had to rely on the odd cup win to keep their huge fans bases happy — the 'New Firm', as the press styled McLean's Dundee United and Aberdeen led by Alex Ferguson, were causing mayhem in the status quo. As if that wasn't bad enough, there was another new kid on the block, from another east coast city, this time Edinburgh — Hearts, managed by ex-Ranger Alex MacDonald and ably assisted by Rangers legend Sandy Jardine.
Hearts were the faded 'third force' in Scottish football, having challenged in the 1950s and to a lesser extent in the 1960s — this may as well have been in the previous century as in the intervening years they had almost folded, having been rescued by the controversial figure of Wallace Mercer. Hearts endured a couple of spells in the lower league after relegation in 1977. In 1985-1986, they mounted a spectacular and unexpected challenge for league and cup honours — their early form was not good, losing five of their first eight games, including a 6-2 humbling at the hands of St Mirren.
By mid-October Hearts had stabilised, drawing against Dundee and unthinkably beating Celtic at Parkhead. The result galvanised Hearts' challenge, and they rampaged through the games, certainly contributing to the end of Aberdeen's defence of the league title and ending Rangers' efforts. They did not lose to Celtic all season, but only beat them once, a crucial factor in a catalogue of crucial factors in the Hearts' campaign. Celtic maintained the pressure throughout while Hearts kept winning, including a spectacular 3-0 defeat of Dundee United at Tannadice in the run in. Hearts had a two-point lead at the start of the last day of the season, but Celtic could still win the league — if they overturned their four goal disadvantage in goal difference. And if Hearts lost.
And that's exactly what happened — by half-time Celtic were winning 4-0 against St Mirren, jangling the nerves of the Hearts support listening in on wirelesses at Dens Park. St Mirren had nothing to play for, Dundee the outside chance of qualification for the UEFA cup — and Hearts only needed a draw to deny Celtic. With only eight minutes to go, and with Celtic by then winning 5-0, Dundee's Albert Kidd sunk Hearts' hopes as Dundee took the lead. Kidd then plunged Hearts into despair with a second goal four minutes later. Celtic's unlikely league win, including a seven-goal swing in goal difference, was complete, and Albert Kidd was hailed as a Celtic hero — and a legend to the schadenfreude of Hibs supporters at the expense of their city rivals.
The last trophy to be decided in the 1985-1986 season was the Scottish Cup, the final being between Aberdeen and Hearts, only a week after the latter's loss of a golden opportunity to win the championship. Just as 1983's Cup Winners' Cup victory seemed to strengthen Aberdeen in 1983's cup final, the emotional and physical effects of last minute defeat seemed to sap Hearts of all of their reserves — they were a shadow of the side that had performed so admirably throughout the season. However, not least, they faced ruthless and unsentimental opposition who were rightly only interested in their own success, and they duly compounded Hearts' misery by meting out a 3-0 thumping, claiming the easiest victory and their fourth Scottish Cup in five years, and making it a double of major trophies for the season.
In the context of almost folding, and despite the agony, Hearts had constructed a fantastic season and may have challenged in subsequent years, emulating the efforts of Aberdeen and Dundee United. They had made the league a seemingly unprecedented five-horse race.
However, by the end of the 1985-86 season, Rangers had not been champions for eight years, and enough was enough. The war-chest creaked open in preparation for the 1986-1987 season and in the first in a number of statements of intent, Rangers appointed Scotland great and Liverpool legend Graeme Souness as player-manager.
Souness had not played top-flight football in Scotland, but he had played at the highest levels of English and European competition. The signings he made indicated that he was only interested in securing the Scottish title regardless of cost, and by over-turning the tradition of Scots going to England he brought the England captain Terry Butcher north, along with Chris Woods, an England international goalkeeper. Nevertheless, Rangers still deployed pre-Souness acquisitions such as Ally McCoist and Davie Cooper, as well as former youth players, such as Ian Durrant and Derek Ferguson — Rome wasn't built in a day, to make a jarring comparison.
Despite an uncertain start, losing 2-1 to Hibs at Easter Road in a game that saw Souness sent off during an unseemly stooshie in the centre circle, Rangers' new era was ushered in with early silverware when they lifted the League Cup in October 1986, defeating Celtic in the final. But the real prize was the League title, which they won six points ahead of Celtic, losing only six games.
As Souness arrived in Scotland, a fillip to his campaign was the departure of Alex Ferguson to Manchester United in November 1986. Ferguson had masterminded and delivered consistent success at Aberdeen contrary to years of 'Old Firm' domination, and Manchester United were desperate to end their nearly two-decade drought in the English championship. It was too tempting an offer for an ambitious talented manager but it was a huge loss to the Scottish game. And as the cliché says, the rest is history.
Meanwhile, in Dundee, and across Europe, Dundee United were blazing through the UEFA cup. They dispatched Lens in round one, and hardly-household-names Universitatea Craiova from Romania in round two. However, the next three matches were tough. Hajduk Split of the not yet former Yugoslavia were defeated thanks to a 0-0 away tie, after a 2-0 victory in Dundee. The next opposition was the mighty Barcelona, featuring Gary Lineker and Mark Hughes and managed by 'El Tel' Terry Venebles. Winning the first tie 1-0 was great, although eclipsed by the feats of the second leg — after going one down to a goal from Calderé United conjured up two away goals from John Clark and Iain Ferguson to pull off a barely comprehensible smash and grab at the Camp Nou. Let's just say Barca weren't the best in the air that evening.
United were into the semi-finals against Borussia Mönchengladbach and German opposition was never going to be easy. Things did not look promising after a 0-0 home tie — but a Camp Nou style away performance with the same result meant that United became the fourth Scottish club to make it to a European final, and the first to reach the final of the UEFA Cup. The opposition, IFK of Gothenburg, seemed beatable given the scalps United had taken — but IFK had already won the UEFA Cup only five years before. The first leg was in Gothenburg and United lost 1-0, not a terrible result in Europe. Between that and the second leg, United played three games, including a draining defeat to St Mirren in the Scottish Cup final in which they were overwhelming favourites. United's 67th and last game of the 1986-1987 season was the second leg of the UEFA Cup final — it did not go well as United conceded midway through the first half, which left them needing three goals to win, and they could only manage one. A season that had promised much for Dundee United ended trophy-less.
In preparation for the 1987-1988 season Celtic reacted to the resurgence of Rangers and entered the transfer market. The long-term policy at the big clubs was to cherry-pick their rivals' key players, this year Billy Stark and Andy Walker. However, echoing Rangers new policy, they also looked south bringing Republic of Ireland internationals Chris Morris and Mick McCarthy, and exile in England, prolific striker, Frank McAvennie. Of course, many players were lured north with the promise of European football, denied to English clubs who were banned in the aftermath of the Heysel Stadium disaster. That said, many of these north-bound players were not consistently in a position to qualify for Europe anyway: Liverpool and Everton were dominating the league — and the big clubs in England still attracted the talent.
Nevertheless, Celtic's centenary year was one of great success. Despite the Souness revolution, Celtic were runaway winners of the league, with Hearts denying Rangers second spot. They lost only three games and none to Rangers — and the meetings between the two would become pivotal in deciding trophies in coming years. Andy Walker was the top scorer with an impressive return of 26 goals. Celtic also won the Scottish Cup after dramatic late comebacks in both the semi-final against Hearts and the final versus Dundee United. For fans and the team, they appeared to have allayed fears of a Rangers revival.
1987-1988's season was unusual in that what happened on the field and in grounds became the topic of some soul-searching. The second Rangers-Celtic game of the season erupted into controversy, sendings-off and an unlikely last gasp equaliser from nine-man 'Gers. The game ended 2-2, a point each, but with three Rangers players and one from Celtic in the dock, all charged with 'conduct likely to provoke a breach of the peace'. In the context of a Glasgow derby, regularly simmering with sectarian bile, acquittal and affordable fines for well-paid footballers indicated that they probably got off lightly.
Later in the season, what was even worse was the behaviour of Celtic and Hearts supporters when the first high-profile black player to appear in Scotland for decades was signed by Rangers. Mark Walters arrived in late December 1987 from Aston Villa and, notwithstanding racist behaviour of English football supporters towards black players, at Parkhead and Tynecastle Walters was subjected to ceaseless taunting and missile-throwing in appalling displays of unalloyed racism.
Scottish supporters had a conceit that they were 'not as bad' as their counterparts down south; on these occasions, they were worse. Never was the phrase 'we're a' Jock Tamson's bairns' more inappropriate.
Celtic's success up to May 1988 may have been a bit unexpected in the context of Rangers' spending, and it proved to be short-lived too, in terms of the Scottish title at least. Rangers limited their spending, but the profile of their main splurge was pretty high — Gary Stevens, Everton and England right-back. But the most significant move in the 1988-1989 season was the acquisition of the Rangers by metal-magnate David Murray, with a minority investment by manager Souness.
Ambition was key — and the club had set their sights on becoming champions of Europe. To do that, they had to become champions in Scotland which they duly did, and only missed out on a clean sweep of domestic bliss by losing to Celtic in the Cup Final. Unbeknownst to fans at the time this was the first of nine successive league triumphs for Rangers. Everyone would be powerless against Rangers' seemingly endless financial muscle. Rangers' and to a lesser extent Celtic's example of importing talent from outside Scotland began to percolate to other clubs as they deferred to different European leagues to find solutions to the supposed short-comings of Scottish players, injecting some 'exoticism' to their squads. Hearts found affordable names in the lower leagues in England, Aberdeen looked to the Netherlands, United to Finland and Yugoslavia; this was a trickle that would become a deluge in the following 30 years.
Rangers' dominance in the transfer market was driven home in the last half-season of the decade with the arrival of the fantastically talented Trevor Steven from Everton, boosted by the slightly less glamourous acquisitions of Chris Vinnicombe and Nigel Spackman.
The real shocker was the signing of Maurice Johnston from Nantes in France. Johnston was set to return to Celtic and was duly pinched by a Murray-Souness eleventh-hour swoop, and he signed for Rangers instead. Signing an ex-Celtic player was momentous — the larcenous nature of the circumstances was remarkable — but none of that mattered, because Johnston had been raised a Catholic, and that, to Rangers fans and Scottish football, was earth-shattering. This last sectarian bastion had taken years to assault, but Souness, Murray and, seemingly Johnston, were more ambitious and rose above that particular parochial problem.
The 1980s started with vibrant league and cup competitions, with major challenges from Dundee United and Aberdeen to the Glasgow status quo, later joined briefly by Hearts. As the Scottish top flight became more competitive, the 'new firm' showed that they, and by extension, the Scottish League, was a quality product capable of making significant challenges against the giants of European football. Players in Scottish teams attracted the attention of the 'big league' in England, bringing transfer funds north — even if much of the money was eventually to go back south with the return of big name signings by Rangers and Celtic later in the decade. But the challenge of provincial sides did not go unchecked, as mid-decade Rangers brought in the glamour signing of Graeme Souness and a raft of good English players. This set a precedent for other teams to copy, immediately and successfully by Celtic, although their mini-revival was countered by the money and ambition in the form of David Murray's acquisition of Rangers.
For most teams, staving off the might of Rangers and Celtic, and the constant fear of relegation fostered a tendency to emulate the 'Old Firm' example and find 'glamour' signings of their own. This became easier after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 and the freedom of contract afforded by the Bosman Ruling in 1995. The unintended consequence was fewer Scots in first team top-flight football and a diminishing pool of experience for the national squad. After 1989, satellite channels promised live football and revenue; the Hillsborough disaster led to changes in football grounds forever (in many Scottish cases for the better — lots of grounds actually acquired roofs); Bosman, as mentioned, changed player transfers.
But the rousing of Celtic and Rangers in reaction to a seemingly consistent challenge to their duopoly simply made them more dominant — and if any proof were needed, no one, apart from those two giant teams, has won the Scottish Championship since 1985.
