Soccer Trivia

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Scottish Premier League

The Clydesdale Bank Premier League, better known to the kilt-loving Celts as the Scottish Premier League, is the top level of competition football in all of Scotland. Sitting above the Scottish Football League, the Premier League pulls in more viewers and overall support and than any nation in Europe. With a league this popular, there must be some interesting, lesser-known facts floating around, right?

 Assuming that you’ll find some fun and intermittent facts about SPL isn’t exactly a craps shoot. Just read below for a few quick facts about the League, and make sure you stop by in the future, as we continue to add facts about the Scottish clubs and footballers that will leave you saying the same four words every time: “I didn’t know that.”

The Premier Division (formerly Division One) was set up at the beginning of the 1975-75 season.

Chris Woods holds the British record of the longest shut-out by a goalkeeper. He did not concede a goal for 1,196 minutes when playing for Rangers in 1986-87, until he was finally beaten by a goal from Hamilton’s Adrian Sprott.

In December 1992 Ally McCoist became the first player to score 200 Scottish Premier goals when he scored Rangers’ winner against Falkirk.

In 1993-94 Aberdeen drew 21 of their 44 games, a Scottish Premier Division record.

Brian Laudrup became the first foreign player to pick up the Scottish Player of the Year award in 1995.

Celtic were fined a record £100,000 in August 1994 for poaching manager Tommy Burns from Kilmarnock.

In 1989-90 Hearts made a bid to buy out Hibs in an attempt to end the Old Firm domination of Scottish football. Protests from fans put an end to the plan.

In November 2000 Rangers paid £12 million for Tore André Flo making him the most expensive SPL signing ever.

In 1998, the football clubs in the Premier Division decided to split from the Scottish Football League and form the Scottish Premier League.

The Scottish Premier League is currently ranked tenth in the UEFA rankings of European leagues, which are based on the performances of member clubs in European competitions.

In 2003, the league's promotion criteria caused controversy as the chairmen of the member clubs voted against Falkirk's proposed ground share with Airdrie United and stopped the club from having the 10,000 fan stadium capacity it required, thus saving Motherwell from relegation.

The highest transfer fee received by an SPL club is £9m paid by Sunderland for Hearts goalkeeper Craig Gordon and by Tottenham Hotspur for Rangers Alan Hutton.

The highest transfer fee between two SPL clubs is £4.5m paid by Celtic for Hibernian's Scott Brown.

The record points tally for a season is held by Celtic with 103 points in the 2001/02 season.

Celtic also hold the SPL record for an unbeaten run of home matches (77), spanning from 2001 to 2004 (this run was ended by a 3-2 defeat to Aberdeen on 21 April 2004), and the record for the longest run of consecutive wins in a single season (25 matches

Former Celtic player Henrik Larsson has scored the most goals in the SPL since its inauguration in season 1998-99, with 173 goals.

Celtic hold the record for most goals in a season, netting 105 times in 2003/04

St Johnstone hold the record for fewest goals in a season, managing only 24 in 2001/02.

The highest attendance in the SPL is 60,440 for the Celtic-St Mirren game on 7 April 2001.

The lowest attendance is 431 for the match between Gretna and Inverness CT, on 5 April 2008.