Fergie’s title triumphs are even more inspiring now football’s in a stranglehold
IN England, Celtic’s 53rd Scottish league championship was met with a shrug of indifference.
Victory over Hearts made it 11 titles in 12 years. And, in the comments below the online match reports, Brian from Bognor Regis and Kevin from Kettering felt the need to tell the world — repeatedly — how little they cared.
Study the facts and figures and it’s hard to muster much of a case for the defence of Scottish football.
The league title has been shared between the same two teams for the last 38 years.
Win their final four league games and Celtic will shatter the record points total for a 38-game league season.
Overcome Inverness at Hampden on June 3 and they’ll secure their fifth domestic treble in seven years.
While the SPFL has competitive balance issues, however, it’s hardly an outlier. Glance around Europe and leagues are being won by the same teams, year in, year out. From east to west, the game is broken.
Dominant clubs are wrapping themselves around competitions of all shapes and sizes and squeezing tight. Football’s unregulated, out-of-control free market has ended any pretence of a balanced distribution of resources.
Competition is being choked and stifled by the economic dominance of clubs rocket-fuelled by Champions League money.
Or, in the case of Manchester City and Newcastle, Middle Eastern sheikhs.
The explosion of wealthy, powerful monopolies has witnessed the first-ever trebles in England, Germany and Italy. In France, PSG have won four domestic quadruples since 2015.
Spain, Italy and England witnessed their first ever 100-point seasons. There were ‘Invincible’ seasons in Scotland, Italy, Portugal and another seven leagues. And, of the 54 leagues across Europe, 13 witnessed the longest run of titles by a single club.
In France, PSG are heading for nine-in-a-row. Red Bull Salzburg are top of the Austrian league and heading for a tenth straight title. Sheriff Tiraspol have won the Moldovan league in ten of the last 11 years. Qarabag are on the verge of making it nine Azerbaijan titles in the last ten seasons.
Hailing from a city of barely 35,000 people, Ludogorets Razgrad are currently a point clear of CSKA Sofia in the Bulgarian league and on course to make it 12-in-a-row.
Dinamo Zagreb have just won the Croatian league for the 24th time in 32 years, while, in Germany, Borussia Dortmund are still one point adrift of a Bayern Munich side who have claimed the title in each of the last ten years.
In Greece, meanwhile, Olympiakos are about to lose their crown to AEK Athens or Panathinaikos after winning the title for 12 of the last 14 seasons.
Envy is a powerful emotion. And when a team dominates the landscape, the natural reaction of rival fans is resentment.
Growing up in the Glasgow of the 1980s there wasn’t a great deal of love on the streets for Aberdeen.
Opposition fans loathed Gordon Strachan so much one tried to assault him on the Parkhead pitch.
Rangers fans still can’t forgive midfielder Neil Simpson for that tackle on Ian Durrant.
But what really made Alex Ferguson’s brilliant side unpopular was the trophies they pinched from under the noses of the Old Firm.
Aberdeen, like Jim McLean’s Dundee United, refused to settle for a seat at the back of the bus. They were too busy driving it on to a pitch in Glasgow and mowing down Celtic and Rangers before reversing back over the bodies just to be sure.
There were no shortage of marmite personalities in sport back then. Tennis had John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl. Snooker had Steve Davis and Alex Higgins. In athletics you were either a Seb Coe man or four square in Steve Ovett’s corner. Football had Brian Clough and, yes, Alex Ferguson.
Yet, over the passage of time, something changes. We begin to see the hate figures of our teenage years in a more benevolent light.
Resentment turns to respect. Anger turns to affection. BBC Scotland’s poignant documentary on Aberdeen lifting the European Cup Winners’ Cup 40 years ago left this viewer pining for the days when a team full of outstanding footballers and great characters triggered an Open Line meltdown on Radio Clyde every other week.
Ferguson’s team won the Dons’ fourth league title in 1985 and the championship has never left the city of Glasgow since. As Celtic prepare to wrap green and white ribbons around the league trophy once more you wonder, now, if it ever will again.