Stein, Smith or Lennon: whose 9-in-a-row was best?

The odd number has become a Scottish football obsession

Jimmy Johnstone played in every season of Celtic's original nine-in-a-row. Picture: SNS

Nine is an oddly – well – odd number to obsess about. Nevertheless, it remains one to which Scottish football has been wedded since Celtic were the first to win this total of successive titles between 1966 and 1974.

Nine-in-a-row has occurred twice more since, the latest being confirmed via an emailed announcement from the SPFL at shortly after midday yesterday. When tasked with running the rule over Celtic’s two extended title runs, and Rangers’ own long spell of dominance between 1989 and 1997, it is easy to wonder where on earth one starts.

Actually, it is straightforward when you pause to think about it for even a little while: Lisbon. Because where discussions start and probably end is with a trophy that is hard to ignore. Nicknamed “Big Ears”, the European Cup is the greatest prize in European football. Celtic’s first great period of domestic hegemony under Jock Stein coincided with their greatest single moment – becoming the first British club to earn the status of European club champions. Celtic also reached the final again during this same period, only to be undone by the then unfancied Feyenoord.

Rangers' Paul Gascoigne (left) and Gordon Durie celebrate the club's ninth successive title, in 1997.

In addition, they were eliminated twice at the semi-finals and twice at the last-eight stage. A European Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final also featured during these years. In short, Celtic commanded vast respect at home – where they reached a remarkable 17 out of 18 domestic finals – and abroad.

When this great side looked to have finally run aground in spring 1975, following a defeat by Hibs at Easter Road, the sports writer Ian Archer, in a heartfelt, poignant column, wrote that it was a “historical probability that we shall not see their like again”.

Celtic’s defence of their title did indeed founder that season – and a great dominion crumbled. They succumbed to inevitable decline and tiredness while also being outmanoeuvred by teams elsewhere, in the end finishing a distant third behind champions Rangers and runners-up Hibs. Archer envisaged Celtic’s crown “rolling down the steps of the throne from which they have ruled this Scottish kingdom for the last nine years”.

But the point is, they had ruled more than only the Scottish kingdom. And this is why it is folly to draw comparisons between that run and Celtic’s current achievement of nine-in-a-row as well as rivals Rangers’ record-equalling success under Walter Smith, inset.

Jock Stein led Celtic to nine titles on the trot from 1966 to 1974

Highly perceptive writer though Archer was, domestic dominance of the sort Celtic managed to assert in the 1960s and early 1970s has been seen again. If Neil Lennon’s team had won this year’s Scottish Cup, and they may still do, then this equals the number of domestic trophies lifted during Celtic’s first nine-in-a-row sequence. Indeed, the haul will have mirrored Stein’s exactly – five League Cups and five Scottish Cups. This is two more trophies than Rangers managed between 1989 and 1997, when the Ibrox side maintained the momentum begun under Graeme Souness, who left for Liverpool towards the end of the 1990-91 season, and emulated Celtic’s original nine-in-a-row.

Many had shared Archer’s view that it was difficult to see how a side could again sustain such excellence, even in a smaller pond such as Scotland, for so long. There was therefore great fanfare – as well as anguish in parts of the east end of Glasgow – when a goal by Brian Laudrup earned Rangers a win at Tannadice on the night they sealed their own nine-in-a-row success. It is a mark of how much things have changed in a relatively short space of time that Celtic did not even finish runners-up until the seventh of these championship successes.

This was the Rangers of Gascoigne, Gough, Goram and the aforementioned Laudrup. It sounds now like they should have been a force in Europe as well. However, save for a memorable year in 1992-93, when a Rangers side made up largely of Scots reached the equivalent of the semi-finals in the first year of the Champions League, the crucial difference to Stein’s nine-in-a-row is it never quite happened for Smith (and Souness) on this stage.

Celtic’s latest nine-in-a-row has been earned in a very different landscape again. Success for Scottish sides in Europe is simply progressing past the preliminary rounds of competitions. For Celtic in particular, qualifying for the riches of the Champions League group stage is the main ambition on the eve of each season. Winning the trophy, as they did 53 years ago, is a pipe dream.

Still, Celtic tend to do well enough to play more than nine games – which is how many Celtic needed to negotiate on the way to winning the European Cup in Lisbon. This season – or last season now, to be accurate – they won ten times in Europe for the first time and yet still exited at the last-32 stage of the Europa League.

While Celtic have maintained their steely grip on domestic trophies, not having lost a cup match since 2016, they tend also to be involved in high octane European ties until Christmas at least.

Remaining competitive in an arena dominated by clubs from more powerful leagues is admirable and must be acknowledged. At the same time, Celtic’s own financial advantage on the domestic front must also be 
recognised.

This situation won’t change in a hurry, especially with the full impact of Covid-19 far from being known. Perhaps the current enforced rest will be more help than hindrance to Celtic in pursuit of ten-in-a-row – their next target.

Unlike in the case of both Stein and Smith, whose ninth successive titles came amid evidence of creaking, Celtic seem well set to extend their supremacy for some considerable time yet.

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