Celtic capture SPL crown

Celtic claimed their third suc­ces­sive Scot­tish Pre­mier League title after they defeated Dundee United 1–0 and Old Firm rivals Rangers lost 2–0 to Aberdeen. For Rangers it is a bit­ter end to a cam­paign which had promised so much right until the very end. Count­ing all com­pe­ti­tions, it was Rangers’ 67th match of the sea­son and they must now try and regroup for one final effort in the Scot­tish Cup final against Queen of the South. They will be hop­ing to add the Scot­tish Cup to the CIS Cup they won ear­lier this season.

For Celtic the win will bring a bit of com­fort just two days after the funeral of Tommy Burns, their assis­tant man­ager and head of youth devel­op­ment. It puts a pos­i­tive end­ing on a roller-coaster sea­son that saw them lead the SPL for the early part of the sea­son, only to slip and see them­selves 7 points behind Rangers with seven weeks of the sea­son left. Celtic made an amaz­ing turn­around that included two Old Firm vic­to­ries. Com­bined with Rangers run in the UEFA Cup, which caused a fix­ture con­ges­tion and sub­se­quent drop­ping of points, it allowed them to over­haul their rivals and claim their 42nd SPL title. Rangers still main­tain the all-time lead with 51 SPL crowns, includ­ing 8 straight between 1990–1997.