The cup finals. The League Cup final was the classic derby: Celtic vs Rangers. Rangers clinched the victory 2-1.
No luck for Celtic this season – twice behind the arch-enemy and no trophies.
Glasgow Rangers with a double. Coming ahead of Celtic twice was great, but more important was the future: Graeme Souness made successful debut in coaching – he acted as playing-coach and contributed both ways, but with him came new philosophy. Rangers invested huge money and the only way to justify the spending spree was success – the gamble worked, there was strong team and new big names were going to be signed as soon as possible. The future finally was looking bright, but also the approach demanded constant success in hope to balance the books at least. It was suicidal race, but thus started long dominant period in Rangers’ history.
The FA Cup final opposed St. Mirren to Dundee United. No brainer… on paper: St. Mirren was too weak. But they heroically kept Dundee United away from scoring and regular time ended 0-0. In the extra-time Ferguson scored for the underdog and there was no end to St. Mirren’s joy at the final whistle: 1-0.
That final probably spelled out the inevitable: the good period of Dundee United came to an end. Not that they were going to plunge down dramatically and perish in the lower league, but they were no longer equal to Celtic and Rangers. Unfortunately, money was the ever present problem: modern football asked for more and more and Dundee did not have enough to maintain great squad.
Fantastic day for St. Mirren – they won the Cup for a third time, but the last time they got it was in the long gone 1959. ‘The Buddies’ hailed from the city of Paisley, which was probably more of a curse than a blessing – 6 km away from Glasgow, more of a suburb than independent town and thus constantly in the shadow of Glasgow’s giants. Not distant enough for independent visability, like the clubs from Dundee and Aberdeen. Modest, but old club – founded in 1877. Very rarely they managed to win anything – the Scottish FA Cups were their only major achievement and they came very rarely. And in the reality of the 1980s, it was almost impossible to expect victory from clubs like St. Mirren – that was winning entirely against the odds and more precious. Going to play a bit of European football was also great and even a new experience for St. Mirren and their fans. Great triumph of the underdog!
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