First Scottish £100,000 transfer
Clyde in the Anglo-Scottish Cup
Celtic's Ibrox title-clinchers
Unbeaten in a season
Morton's winning run

 

Q "Who was the first player to move between Scottish clubs for a £100,000 fee?" asks Gareth Evans

A It was Colin Stein from Hibs to Rangers in 1968

From great games to the game's greats. If you have a query concerning Scottish football, this is the place to send it to. We'll answer as many as we can but regret that we cannot respond individually to requests. So bookmark this site and look in regularly as questions and answers are frequently updated.


Q John O'Neill asks: "Have Celtic ever won the League at Ibrox and if so when? Results and scorers please."

A It's happened twice. On Apr 25th 1908 Celtic, with three games remaining, were a point ahead of Rangers and Falkirk who both had one match to play. Rangers last game was at home v Celtic and the title was decided by virtue of an Alec Bennett goal which gave Celtic a 1-0 victory. Falkirk drew their last match to take the runners-up spot.

Alec Bennett had signed for Rangers by the start of the following season!

On May 6th 1967 Celtic travelled to Ibrox heading the table by a single point from Rangers. They had two to play but this was Rangers' final game so anything other than a home win would send the title to Parkhead for the second successive season.

Sandy Jardine gave Rangers the lead but after a Bobby Lennox shot came back off the post Jimmy Johnstone latched onto the rebound to level the game at half-time.

Fifteen minutes from time a Johnstone 25-yarder put Celtic ahead. Roger Hynd equalised for Rangers close to the end but the 2-2 draw was enough to give Celtic the flag.

In 1981 Charlie Nicholas scored the only goal of the game at Ibrox to leave Celtic six clear of Aberdeen with three to play. Technically speaking the title wasn't won that day as a Celtic collapse and a run of Aberdeen victories would have kept the title with the defending champions at Pittodrie. Celtic beat 3-2 Dundee United four days later to officially secure the championship.

The unkind might also suggest 1968 when with both Old Firm clubs on 61 points with one game to play, Rangers lost for the first time that season, to Aberdeen at home. That meant that unless Celtic lost their final game at Dunfermline by 16-0 they would be champions. So, although they weren't playing there, you could argue that Celtic won the title at Ibrox by virtue of Rangers defeat!

Q Why SFAQs? What does that mean?

A FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) can be found on many websites, mostly relating to technical matters and SFA stands for (amongst other things) Scottish Football Association. So a neat amalgamation of acronyms gives us SFAQs which means Scottish Football Answers (to) Questions.

 

 

 

 

For old SFAQs click here

 

Q From Douglas Fleming: "Did Clyde ever participate in the Anglo-Scottish Cup, and if so, what is their record ?"

A Clyde took part just once. They were beaten 2-1 by Celtic at Parkhead on Aug 3rd 1978 and lost the return leg at Shawfield 6-1 two days later.

Q Two queries from Jason Browne. Firstly, he asks "It's a big 'IF', but if Celtic remain unbeaten this year, will they be the first 'Top Division' club to go through a league season unbeaten, both in Scotland and throughout the world?"

A Not by a long way. To give just two examples: the very first season of organised League football was in 1888-89 and Preston North End were unbeaten throughout the campaign. In Scotland Rangers won every match in 1898-99.

Q Jason comes back with "Is it possible to ask the question again in the 'modern' era? There's a big difference between winning every game in 1898-99, and doing it now!"

A What is the ‘modern era?’ Even looking at the last few seasons there are several examples of sides going through a season unbeaten. In Europe alone it happens regularly in Andorra and in Latvia Skonto Riga won two titles in succession without losing a match in the mid-1990s.

Of course these Leagues have nowhere near as many matches as in Scotland and – the Aberdeen v Skonto Riga debacle aside – cannot be considered to be of a high standard. Mind you the current SPL doesn’t bear consideration to some of the top leagues. For instance, at the time of writing Arsenal are also currently unbeaten in the English Premiership.

But a good example of a League with a reasonable number of games, of a decent playing standard and with unbeaten champions in recent times is Romania.

For three seasons in succession –1986-87, 87-88 and 88-89 – Steaua Bucharest completed the 34-game season unbeaten. Dinamo Bucharest did likewise in 1991-92.

Q John Owen asks: "According to the Scotsman website, Morton won 23 consecutive games in the 1963-64 season. However, the Sunday Times and Sunday Herald both give 22 consecutive wins. Which is correct?"

A The Scotsman has it right. Morton won their last two League games in 1962-63 and their first 23 in 1963-64 for a total of 25 consecutive league victories. It's shocking - but sadly not surprising - for newspapers to get this wrong.

 

 

 

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