Head for heights

For football supporters who don’t wrap themselves in blue or green-and-white scarves, those events belong to a different world. In the two decades since, the top league in Scotland has been depressingly dominated by Rangers and Celtic, with the Ibrox side triumphant 14 times and the Parkhead outfit on another six. Now, though, the early-season promise of Hearts, plus the defeat of Rangers by Aberdeen at Pittodrie last weekend, has fanned flickering flames of hope that even if a challenger can’t stop the Old Firm in their tracks they could, at least, make it a meaningful competition outwith the big two.

Billy Stark was a key player in that Aberdeen side of 20 years ago, signed by Ferguson for £70,000 from St Mirren, to eventually replace Gordon Strachan in midfield, after the manager discovered the Paisley club rejected a £55,000 offer for him from McLean at Dundee United.

Stark believes any challenger to the Old Firm’s hegemony most of all needs the mental toughness that Ferguson ruthlessly instilled into his charges. “When you played for Aberdeen at that time the manager expected us to win two trophies a season, the same target as the Old Firm,” he says. “That was the pressure he put us under.

“The second year I was at Pittodrie we lost Gordon Strachan, Mark McGhee and Doug Rougvie. Those departures would have destroyed a lesser manager, but Fergie went out and bought Tommy McQueen from Clyde and Frank McDougall from St Mirren. They were superb and we won the title even more comfortably in 1985. He always did his homework on players he wanted to sign and who were capable of living up to his demands. He very rarely bought the wrong players.

“The landscape has changed dramatically since 1985 and the Old Firm moved further away financially from the rest in Scotland, but Fergie’s achievements were a hell of a feat. Look at the bedrock of his team: Leighton, McLeish, Miller, and it never changed, and he had right good players up front as well.”

In the intervening years, Stark has played for Celtic and Kilmarnock, coached both clubs and at Hamilton, and managed Morton, St Johnstone and now Queen’s Park. “It’s far more difficult to build a team now than it was 20 years ago,” he concedes. “Take the Bobo Balde situation, he signs a greatly improved contract but it includes a get-out clause which seems pretty ridiculous. Everybody talks about transfer fees and I know the Old Firm can’t spend the money they once did, but people forget they still pay players £25,000-a-week and that’s just as important in attracting players.”

As if to prove Stark’s point, George Burley has barely paid a transfer fee since arriving at Tynecastle, yet players with proven calibre at European and international level such as Rudi Skacel, Edgaras Jankauskas and Takis Fyssas are being remunerated healthilyfrom the pockets of Vladimir Romanov, the Hearts owner. It is a new tactic to try and overcome the strength of the Old Firm, and so far it is working. Hearts sit three points clear at the top of the table and have three eminently winnable League matches at home to Motherwell then away to both Livingston and Inverness before they meet either of the Old Firm. That will happen on September 24 when Rangers visit Tynecastle, with Hearts due to visit Parkhead three weeks later. A continuation of early-season form will see the Old Firm playing catch up in these games rather than exerting their customary authority, a pressure which may widen the chinks in each team’s armour into a yawning gap of opportunity.

Despite the theory, Stark is not optimistic that there will be a change in the pecking order at the top by the end of the season, but he would settle for even half a campaign’s realistic challenge. “Hearts are getting a lot of good publicity and that’s great, everyone’s enjoying not seeing the Old Firm automatically at the top. But you’ve got to be realistic and, if you look round the top leagues of Europe, there are usually only two teams who are title contenders. In fact, you could argue that last season there was only one in England and that was Chelsea. What you want ideally is that in the first half of the season at least two or three clubs keep in range of the top two.”

Billy Kirkwood was an integral part of Dundee United’s 1983 title-winning team, playing in all but five of their 36 matches as they went on to pip Celtic by a point, being driven past the finishing line like their Pittodrie rivals by the combination of good players and excellent managership, this time from the dictatorial McLean. If Kirkwood could wave a magic wand 22 years on to conjure up realistic challengers, he would banish the fear factor .

“Too many teams are intimidated by going to Ibrox or Parkhead,” he says. “If you could take that fear away it would make for more results against the Old Firm. Aberdeen, in their great years, had a right good record at Ibrox but it’s the same as European games; you’ve got to build momentum. That breeds success but, sadly, a lot of teams give up before they’re even on the park.”

Kirkwood, though, is heartened by the evidence that supporters will return to back clubs who become credible challengers. “The fans will turn out if they see their teams get a taste of success. Hearts have shown that in the opening weeks both home and away, so have Aberdeen who took a crowd of 5,000 to Tannadice for the opening game of the season. There’s a real demand out there that’s gone unfulfilled for too long.”

Even the Old Firm claim they would welcome a viable challenge from Tynecastle. “If what’s been happening at Hearts makes the Scottish league more competitive, I’m all for it,” said Brian Quinn, the Celtic chairman. “If they pose a serious threat to the Old Firm then the football fan in me welcomes that. It creates more excitement with games that matter a lot more and it means it’s another club that teams are desperate to beat, rather than just Celtic and Rangers. If the challenges should spread it would be even better.

“A lot of clubs have gone through the financial fire and they’ve stabilised their positions with reduced squads and wages but I don’t see any notable deterioration in the quality of football. I think there are some good clubs playing good football in the Premierleague just now.”

Yet the challengers will have to change the lessons of history, as the supremacy of Glasgow’s big two is not exactly a new phenomenon. Search back through the records and in the inter-war years there was the same championship stranglehold with Rangers winning 15 times, Celtic on four occasions with Motherwell the only other club to take the title, and that was just once. The second world war put a temporary stop to the Ibrox side’s almost annual march to the title, but they won it the first season after the peace. A world war, however, seems a price too high to pay to alter the balance of power in Scottish football.

Taken from timesonline.co.uk