The dismissal of Tony Mowbray as Celtic manager last week doesn’t just raise questions about the troubles affecting the green and white side of Glasgow. Despite their success this season, bitter rivals Rangers will be all too aware of the pitfalls that lie in wait. No doubt their fans are ecstatic as their side look certain to claim the Scottish Premier League title for the second year in a row. Their team have problems of their own, however, with the club up for sale and the perilous state of football’s finances casting its own dark shadow over the Scottish game.
What’s more, whoever claims the Scottish title from the 2010-2011 season will face an uphill struggle to reach the Champions League group stage following the recent drop in the country’s UEFA co-efficient ranking. Instead of automatic qualification to the holy grail of European football, the triumphant team will have to negotiate three qualifying rounds as a result of Scottish team’s poor recent performances in European competition.
Looking back to the nineties and early noughties, there appeared to be something of a golden age for Celtic and Rangers. Appearances in Europe were guaranteed and included notable scalps. Celtic reached the UEFA Cup final in 2003, cruelly losing out to Jose Mourinho’s FC Porto in extra-time. Rangers matched the feat by reaching the final in 2008, losing to an Andrey Arshavin inspired Zenit St. Petersburg. The rich sub-plots and excitement domestically were interwoven by these relative successes on the continent. Names such as Gascoigne, McCoist, Di Canio, messrs Duncan and Barry Ferguson and free-scoring Celtic icon, Henrik Larsson lit up the league. Celtic’s loan signing Robbie Keane is one of the few players in recent years to cause genuine excitement as both team’s financial clout and lustre have waned.
Spanning the late eighties to mid-nineties, Rangers enjoyed a stranglehold on the league under the guidance of Graeme Souness and Walter Smith. In the early part of the noughties, it was the turn of Martin O’Neill’s Celtic side to dominate, capturing three league titles between 2000 and 2005. Their attempts at claiming three in a row were thwarted by Alex McLeish’s Rangers team in 2002-2003 in arguably one of the greatest ever finishes to a domestic season. Rangers went on to win the league by a single goal following last day drama that will live long in the memory. Despite Celtic beating Kilmarnock 4-0, it was the Ibrox side who were celebrating as they trounced Dunfermline 6-1 with the decisive last goal coming in the final minute.
Gordon Strachan’s Celtic team did manage to capture three in a row between 2006-2008 however the diminutive Scotsman never managed to garner the same adoration that was reserved for O’Neill. Perhaps his team were seen as less inspiring as their predecessors and this is something that strikes at the heart of the notion of a lost golden age. The Old Firm are still capable of attracting decent players however few of them appear to have the same aura as their past counterparts. Celtic have previously boasted the talents of the fiery Paulo Di Canio, the mercurial Lubo Moravcik, the symbolic Neil Lennon, a former Champions League winner in Paul Lambert and of course the legendary Henrik Larsson. Rangers meanwhile can point to their own illustrious hall of fame. The likes of classy Dane, Brian Laudrup, captain marvel, Barry Ferguson, a rejuvenated Paul Gascoigne and their own goal-scoring hero, Ally McCoist all form a canon of former greats.
Celtic cannot afford to retain the services of Irishman Robbie Keane and to use the modern parlance, it’s doubtful that either Old Firm side will make a ‘marquee’ signing capable of causing the frenzy that ensued following Keane’s arrival. Old Firm fans and neutrals will perhaps mourn the passing of what in hindsight, appeared to be a golden age in the attraction of Scottish football. Of course, though it is difficult for those on the outside not to, we shouldn’t assume that the buck stops with the Old Firm. Hearts came close to challenging the big two and Aberdeen, Motherwell, Hibernian and more recently Dundee United, have all tried to break their domination. What remains though, are two distinctly average Old Firm teams who have lost their wider appeal. Tellingly, football fans are reflecting on the excitement of the past rather than looking to the potential of the future.
William Geldart
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I think the main thing that equates to the success/failure of the old firm in Scotland goes to the money status of both clubs. Rangers are in massive debt and will struggle to maintain their current dominance while they currently accumulate more debts. Players will be sold on if a buyer isn’t found and will equate to potientially a Portsmouth esque situation. Celtic on the other hand gave Mowbray 11 million to spend on players. This despite the fact they had an annual loss this season of 7 million and the fact that Mowbray’s signings were hardly inspiring given that he dismantled the core of the Strachan era. I think the old firm will once again draw players of bigger calibre once they decide the 2 factors in my mind, A) The status of the Scottish Football Leagues, which in my opinion needs to be re organised into a 2 tier division so that there is a bigger battle and B) They invest a lot more into the standards within the league. It is hardly comparable between say the Scottish Premier League with the Bundersliga in Germany.