Thursday, December 19, 2024

McClair relives Celtic’s 1986 league title triumph

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Former striker Brian McClair has been reliving the day Celtic clinched the 1985-86 Scottish top-flight title.

On the final day of the season, Hearts were two points ahead of Celtic with a superior goal difference of four.

But in a dramatic finale, Celtic raced to a 4-0 victory at half-time in their game against St Mirren at Love Street.

Then, just nine minutes after the break, McClair made it five. Meanwhile, Hearts were drawing 0-0 at Dundee.

With just seven minutes to go, Dundee substitute – and Celtic supporter – Albert Kidd put the home side in front at Dens before scoring again with three minutes to play, securing the title for the Parkhead club.

“Hearts were by far the better team right through the whole season up until almost the very end,” McClair told the BBC’s Sacked in the Morning podcast.

“We had got into a situation where we felt we just needed to try and win the last nine or 10 games.

“The big game I felt gave us all real belief we could perhaps get within touching distance was when we went to Pittodrie, we always got hammered there, but we managed to beat them 1-0.

“After that game, it gave us a lot of belief together and also independently going into the last game.

“We had nothing to lose, we knew what we had to do, we were just hopeful something would happen at Dundee.

“It’s always the same, people will make comments about St Mirren and the way they were, but we played really, really well, particularly in the first 20 minutes.

“We blew them away, got the goals, and were in a position to hope something was going to go our way in Dundee, which it did.”

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[BBC]

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