40 years of nothing but Celtic and Rangers - only extreme change can break Scottish football's grim duopoly

Billy Stark remembers it like it was only yesterday. And many may wish it was only yesterday, because then doing something about what followed might be possible.

The midfielder had joined Aberdeen from St Mirren and was thinking that winning Scottish league titles was the norm. He now had two in two seasons at Pittodrie.

“You think it will last forever,” he says, recalling when Aberdeen claimed their last Scottish league title and what has proved to be the most recent one clinched by any team not called Celtic and Rangers. “Little did we think at the time that that would be the last time outside the Old Firm.”

Billy Stark won two league titles with Aberdeen - including the last non-Old Firm success in 1985. | SNS Group 0141 221 3602

He remembers they had to clear snow from the pitch on the morning of the pivotal match against Celtic - 40 years ago this weekend. It is perhaps symbolic of the nuclear winter that has since set in.

“I think it was a golden era – even with St Mirren, we finished third in 1979-80,” Stark, now 68, says. “With four games to go, we could still win it. We went to Aberdeen and lost 2-0 and they wrapped up their first title of that era a few weeks later at Easter Road.”

Dominant Dons

When Aberdeen put the destiny of their third Scottish title of that era and fourth in their history beyond doubt with a 1-1 draw against their nearest challengers, becoming the first club from outside Glasgow to retain the championships since Hibs in the 1950s, there were evident signs of unease.

Boring! cried some critics. Was this age of Aberdeen ever going to end? Might Scottish football ever be unshackled from the tyranny of the relentless Reds? They ended up creating records for points amassed and goals scored.

It was, noted the Daily Record, Aberdeen’s eighth major trophy in seven years. “Manager Alex Ferguson has steered the club to a period of success unrivalled in their history,” read a picture caption. Despite the loss of Gordon Strachan, Mark McGhee and Doug Rougvie the previous summer, they had led the division every week since the second Saturday of the season to retain the title. Could anyone stop this juggernaut?

Dundee United had entered the equation of course and had won the title by a point from Aberdeen and Celtic in 1983. It’s one reason why Stark was recruited. “Alex Ferguson wanted more goals from the middle of midfield,” he says.

He scored 20 times from midfield in the 84-85 season, although he gripes about missing a couple of chances against Celtic and was also at the centre of the penalty award, which saw the visitors briefly look like they might make things a bit interesting.

“I am still raging about that,” says Stark, who retired last year as head coach of the Scotland Under-19s. “George Smith was the referee. Mo Johnston was backing into me. I just put my hands up to cushion myself and he gave a penalty.”

Roy Aitken drilled home the spot kick at the old King Street End and Paul McStay was felled by a coin thrown by the crowd in the aftermath. Willie Miller scored the equaliser in the second half with a header that squeezed in at the far post. He then raced up the touchline in front of the south stand before being felled by his jubilant teammates, with Alex McLeish to the fore.

Aberdeen captain Willie Miller (centre) with the Premier League Trophy in May 1985 after presentation by League President David Letham (left). Surrounded by manager Alex Ferguson (right) and the Aberdeen squad. | SNS Group 0141 221 3602

These were the days before Helicopter Sundays, hastily assembled podiums, ticker tape and TV fire sticks. If you wanted to see Aberdeen presented with the trophy, you had to turn up to a BP Youth Cup final on a Tuesday night ten days later. Retiring Scottish League President David Letham handed the prize to Willie Miller before the first-team players left the stage clear for the youngsters who, in front of around 6,000 fans, served up a minor classic. Having been 3-0 down to a Celtic side captained by Derek Whtye, the Aberdeen youngsters roared back to level at 3-3 and then won 5-3 in extra time, with Joe Miller and Paul Wright among those on the scoresheet.

Never mind the present, even the future looked bright for Aberdeen. Ferguson noted that the potential of some of the colts "is almost frightening". Others were left trailing in the club's wake.

Old Firm struggles

Celtic? They ended up finishing seven points back. Rangers, meanwhile, were being treated like a joke. The Old Firm had become the In Firm. It was notable that although Miller’s equaliser was roundly accepted to have clinched the title for Aberdeen, with the Sunday Post proclaiming “Champions!” on their back page the following morning, it was not rendered a mathematical certainty until Celtic were held by Rangers the following midweek. The rescheduled Old Firm clash that was as close to meaningless as these games get though there were still three red cards – two for Rangers, one for Celtic.

Talk about two bald men fighting over a comb. Ally McCoist’s equaliser handed Rangers a point and delivered the title to Aberdeen, although his post-match comments about the Ibrox side deserving to be considered as contenders ahead of next season attracted ridicule in the north-east. “Have you heard the latest one about Rangers,” began one article in the Aberdeen Evening Express. “They are going to mount a serious challenge for next season’s League Championship!”

The joke remained on Rangers the following season when the Ibrox side finished even lower – going from fourth to fifth. But it was also on Aberdeen to a certain extent. They ended up fourth. It was far from a disaster, however. They won the two cups to make it nine and then ten major trophies in nine years as opposed to the current tally of three in these last 35 years. It was Aberdeen’s world and those of us around at the time were all just living in it so please forgive and indulge this writer’s descent into nostalgia – and no, I am not an Aberdeen fan.

It was just a better time for Scottish football supporters, was it not? Even fans of Celtic and Rangers (of a certain age) might agree. Granted, it might be challenging telling that to those supporters of Celtic who will, they hope, turn Tannadice into a sea of green and white this weekend as they celebrate the winning of yet another Scottish league title on their way to a potential treble (Aberdeen, coincidentally, will have a say in that).

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers and captain Callum McGregor will hope to clinch a fourth successive Scottish Premiership trophy this weekend. (Photo by Rob Casey / SNS Group) | SNS Group

Two-horse race became one

It makes the Pittodrie side’s title triumph of 40 years ago seem particularly worth recalling. It is of course the last time anyone outwith Rangers and Celtic won the Scottish league title and even that ‘of course’ conveys a sense of acceptance that I have come to question in myself and others.

Have we simply become inured to the fact that the Scottish league championship is a two-horse race and not even that for the last 14 years, when Celtic - in anticipation of them getting over the line against United - have won it every year bar one? It's barely worth asking Scottish football journalists to predict the winners of the Scottish top flight, as was once a customary way for papers to preview a new season. Even proposing Rangers is now seen as a bold and somewhat maverick choice. Sports writers now classed in the veteran category have only ever known one or the other of two teams becoming champions in their professional life. Perhaps we’ve all become a little numb to it, which might be one of the problems.

Let’s face it, unless there’s some extreme change, such as the unrealistic prospect of the Old Firm flitting south, you’ll be reading this same piece in 2035 as we mark half a century since a non-Old Firm team last won the league.

“Going back to your question, has it been a good thing?” considers Stark. “I don’t think so. Although, if you measure the big leagues throughout Europe, it is usually the big clubs winning, with the odd exception. We were always a unique exception in that we are a small country with two big clubs who can attract 60,000 each week. Obviously, the power is going to lie there.”

Souness revolution

Graeme Souness was recruited by Rangers chairman David Holmes to help harness this power. A certain David Murray was also waiting in the wings. Mentions of him in newspapers in 1985 were restricted to steel and his ownership of a basketball team based in Livingston.

“Everyone was staggered by Graeme Souness’ appointment as player-manager,” says Stark. “It was a very innovative appointment and it turned out to be a big, seismic change in Scottish football. Then there was the signing of Maurice Johnston, which was absolutely fantastic. It took a strong character to do that. We have a lot to be thankful to Graeme for, but we were not thinking that at the time.”

Do we think that now? Stark is an ideal witness to this era because as well as picking up league medals with Aberdeen, he collected one with Celtic too – their 1988 centenary win, with Stark a driving force, was their first championship since 1982 and last until 1998 amid a period of Rangers dominance. “Billy McNeill managed to pull together a really good squad after losing Alan McInally, Mo Johnston, Brian McClair and Murdo MacLeod,” he says. Aberdeen challenged Rangers in 1991 to the extent that it came down to a winner-takes-all clash at Ibrox on the last day.

Hearts, meanwhile, had admirable shots at glory in 1997-98 and 2005-06 but such isolated events that so readily spring to mind is a long way from a healthy, competitive climate. The general enthusiasm that greeted Aberdeen’s start to this season, when they won their first seven Premiership matches, said it all about a country hankering for something else.

Graeme Souness led a Scottish football revolution following his appointemt as Rangers player-manager in 1986. | SNS Group 0141 221 3602

Calls for change

Iain McMenemy was in second year at Bannockburn High School, where he was classmates with Duncan Ferguson, when Aberdeen won their last league title and We are the World by USA for Africa was at No 1 (soon to be replaced by Paul Hardcastle’s 19). The former Stenhousemuir chairman can remember the last great golden age of competitiveness in Scottish football in the 1980s. He has since become an advocate for change. It doesn’t have to be like this.

He complains about the way clubs have agreed to put Celtic and Rangers “on a pedestal”, specifically when it comes to always having an Old Firm representative on the SPFL board. “They swap back and forth, Rangers are on the board for one term, then it swaps to Celtic, then back to Rangers….Everyone in the Premiership goes along with that,” he says.

“When it comes to votes, the two biggest clubs always have a hand in dictating to the rest of the clubs in their own division exactly how it is to be.”

He points to the way money is distributed through the leagues, with the most going to the top teams, who are also the ones invariably getting furthest in the lucrative European arena. “The gap is getting wider,” he says – and he’s right. Rangers will not be as poor as they have been this season anytime soon and yet they are still 13 points ahead of Hibs in third place.

McMenemy remembers a conversation that he had with fellow office bearers at an SPFL Competitions Workings group meeting at the height of the Colt teams debate. “Somebody from a Premiership club said to me, ‘I wish you had a bit more ambition’. So I replied, ‘I won’t take lectures from anyone who, at the first kick of the ball of the season, is aiming for third. Every year.’”. Ouch.

That wasn't the case in 1985. And it wasn't the case in 1986, although this is the year the descent into Old Firm hegemony began, almost by stealth. It was Hearts' title, their first since 1960, until it wasn't. What might have been the story if Tosh McKinlay had not been injured on that fateful day at Dens Park, when Hearts were beaten at the death and Celtic scored the required number of goals against St Mirren?

Dundee's Albert Kidd (left, 14) watches as Hearts 'keeper Henry Smith scrambles in vain to reach his shot | SNS Group 0141 221 3602

Hearts title that got away

Albert Kidd had been pestering Archie Knox all week about playing because, as he told him, "I always do well against Hearts". The Dundee manager relented only to the extent that he named him as one of two substitutes, alongside John McCormack. Kidd replaced McKinlay just after the hour mark and the rest is history.

“I did feel sorry for Hearts, I really did. But obviously I sway towards Celtic,” he says now. I had wanted to ask him if, knowing what he knows now, he feels any different about his goals. He can’t change what happened and says he doesn’t want to for various reasons. He suspects his intervention that afternoon meant he was able to close out a lucrative business deal that helped usher him towards early retirement. When we speak, he is about to set off for a day’s fishing off the Adelaide coastline on his new boat, Kidd U Knot.

Now 63, he has been based in Australia since the late 1980s, where he headed to sign for Hellas and later hosted a football talk show on radio. He also owned a successful joinery and construction company.

“Somebody contacted me on behalf of the Jamie Oliver restaurant chain,” he recalls. “He asked to see me in Perth, so I got the suit on and went up there. Turns out he was from Edinburgh.” It also turned out he supported the right team when it came to Kidd. He introduced himself properly. “He looked at me, ‘you’ve got to be joking!’”

Kidd got the tender, worth 1.6 million (Aus dollars) and got the contract for other Jamie Oliver restaurants in Australia. “Honestly, I feel for Hearts,” he stressed. “I just didn’t realise how massive it was all going to be.”

It was good to get in early to speak to Kidd this week, because he knows what's in store for him in just short of 12 months' time. Being besieged by phone calls from people like me wanting to talk to him 40 years on from the day he became a hero at two clubs he never played for - Hibs and Celtic.

One wonders what might have changed had he not scored those goals. Not a lot in all likelihood other than it would currently be only 39 years since a non-Old Firm club won the Scottish title.

Change was coming, it was probably unavoidable to a degree and whether it was for the best or not, well, find someone aged around 50 and over. They should be able to tell you.