The people who play for, manage and support Celtic and Rangers long ago realised that, in a very real sense, second is last.
Since then their long-suffering support has endured administration, liquidation and stagnation, with the run to the Europa League final last year now looking more like a blip than a breakthrough. The players, too, have been criticised and castigated for their failure to overtake the front runners. “He told me that, in the summer of 1988, he’d informed the directors that he wanted to sign two players; Peter Beardsley from Liverpool and Paul Gascoigne from Newcastle.
“He was 21 then and ended up joining Tottenham instead. Beardsley, who was 27, stayed at Anfield while Rangers went on to win nine in a row. Giovanni van Bronckhorst made a fortune for Rangers by reaching a European final, winning a Scottish Cup and qualifying for the group stages of the Champions League but was given a fraction of the war chest handed to his manipulative successor, the 22-match managerial rookie Michael Beale.