Premier Division. It was fine for those on the bottom, because they were not going to relegated, but this was no comfort for the Scottish football at large: a 10-team league was divided into 4 distinct groups – 4 strong teams, 2 mid-table, 2 weak, yet much stronger than the last two. Bigger league would be perhaps more interesting for the fans, but could not hide the reality: Scottish football was quite impoverished. Really strong and competitive championship was just a wild dream. It was clear that no more than 4 clubs could be strong – there were resources for more.
Clydebank – last with 20 points. Happy to stay in the league, thanks to the coming enlargement, but…
Motherwell – 9th and that thanks to better goal-difference, for they too finished with 20 points. They too only postponed the real battle for survival to the next season.
Hibernian – weak, but still much stronger than the last 2 teams: 8th with 28 points. Bigger league was perhaps good news for them – that meant security. A bit larger group of weaker than them clubs.
St. Mirren – 7th with 31 points. Like Hibernian, they looked forward to bigger league, so to be safer.
Dundee FC – 6th with 35 points. Mid-table club… what does it mean to be sedate mid-table team in so small league? Largely, no danger of relegation…
Perhaps Dundee FC could be satisfied with mid-table place, but Glasgow Rangers reduced to mediocrity? Well, there they were – 5th with 35 points. And in such situation since 1978-79… slowly sinking from 3rd to 5th place. Urgent changes were needed.
And that was the sorry state of Scottish football… 4 teams. Under closer scrutiny, none all that great.
Aberdeen – unable to defend its title of the previous season and 4th with 44 points.
Dundee United – 3rd with 47 points. Just four decent teams and among them Dundee United already settled for 3rd position and no more. They were entirely outside the race for the title three years in a row.
No matter how strong or weak the teams, the battle for the title was thrilling – two rivals went together to the very end, finishing with equal points. Goal-difference separated them.
One may feel truly sorry for Heart of Midlothian – they had weaker team compared to Celtic and Abredeen, but played bravely and lost the championship only on goal-difference. Were they really one of the top 4 is also debatable, for the Hearts were only 7th in the previous season, but sudden ups and down were quite typical of them. Too bad they did not win.
Both Hearts and Celtic finished the season with 20 wins, 10 ties, and 6 losses and Celtic clinched the title on better goal-difference: 67-38, +29 bettered Hearts’ +26. Of course, fans were happy, but… it was not just that Celtic barely prevailed over modest squad. Given who had what, Celtic had the best squad in Scotland by far – but it was not a great squad and was rather short and limited one. The best quality of it was that most of the boys were young. Danny McGrain was the pillar of the team, but he was 35-years old already. The new bright star was Mo Johnston, but there was no much around him. Yes, it was stronger and better rounded team than the other Scottish teams at the moment, but… McGrain was getting too old, Roy Aitken, Tommy Burns, and Dave Proven certainly reached their maximum already and they were not going to get better, only older. Pat Bonner was solid, but hardly great goalkeeper. It was largely a matter of keeping the young players away from English clubs, which was almost impossible – especially in the case of Mo Johnston. Celtic won one more title, but reality was bitter: they were reduced to local power and only in terms of the current state of Scottish football. Internationally, Celtic was just run-of-the-mill team. The only comfort was that arch-enemy Rangers was in worse shape.