Brian McClair Recalls Celtic’s 1985-86 League Championship Victory

Former striker Brian McClair, pictured celebrating the league title alongside Maurice Johnston, has recently recounted the day Celtic secured the 1985-86 Scottish top-flight championship. Heading into the season’s final matchday, Hearts held a two-point advantage over Celtic, coupled with a four-goal superior goal difference. However, in a dramatic conclusion, Celtic quickly established a 4-0 lead by halftime in their match against St Mirren at Love Street. Subsequently, only nine minutes into the second half, McClair extended Celtic’s lead to five goals. Concurrently, Hearts’ match against Dundee remained goalless. With merely seven minutes remaining, Dundee’s substitute, Albert Kidd – also a Celtic supporter – gave the home team the lead at Dens. He then scored once more with three minutes left, thereby guaranteeing the championship for the Parkhead club. “Hearts were by far the better team right through the whole season up until almost the very end,” McClair stated on the BBC’s Sacked in the Morning podcast. He added, “We had got into a situation where we felt we just needed to try and win the last nine or 10 games.” McClair elaborated, “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.” He continued, “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,” McClair remarked. He also noted, “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,” he concluded.