ON this weekend, the final round of fixtures in the SPFL Premiership were due to be completed. If the season hadn’t been suspended on March 13, it is very likely – although not certain – that Celtic would have been receiving the Premiership trophy after the final whistle tomorrow, for the ninth time in a row. Before that run started, Rangers had claimed the title in 2005; they had achieved their own nine a row between 1989 and 1997.
We are now in the longest-ever spell without the League being won by either Rangers or Celtic; the last club to break the duopoly was Aberdeen, in 1985. That was the Dons’ fourth title win; their first had come 30 years earlier, in 1955 (the club had been formed in 1903).
That hallowed team is featured in our main picture. No doubt supporters of a certain vintage (or fanaticism) can reel off the line-up: (back row, left right) Paterson, Caldwell, Martin, O’Neil, Young, Glen; (front row) Leggat, Yorston, Buckley, Wishart, Hather.
The Dons won the league with 49 points, three ahead of Celtic. Rangers finished third, Hearts fourth.
One of the undoubted stars of that team was winger Graham Leggat. Capped 18 times for Scotland – including two games in the 1958 World Cup Finals – he was inducted into the Dons’ Hall of Fame in 2017.
He was transferred to Fulham in 1958 for £16,000, where he formed a profitable partnership on the right with England captain Johnny Haynes.
He is pictured above (second left) preparing to travel to Cardiff on international duty in 1956, here with Lawrie Reilly of Hibs (left), Celtic’s Bobby Collins and Tommy Younger of Hibs (right). Leggat scored two of his eight international goals against Wales.
He later emigrated to Canada, where he became a leading light in the development of Canadian soccer. He died in 2015, aged 81.
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