Scottish football: The good, bad & ugly of season 2021-22

Memorable moments of the 2021-22 season

By Tom English
BBC Scotland

St Johnstone's survival job against Inverness Caledonian Thistle on Monday brought an end to the football season in Scotland - or did it?

Blink and we'll be back into it with Scotland in a major way. June could be seismic in the story of Steve Clarke's team.

Blink again and Europe will be upon us once more. While we have a chance, let's recap on the good and the great, the dismal and the depressing, the weird and the wonderful.

A is for Ange

Not Celtic's first choice and inherited a mess. Celtic lost pre-season friendlies to Preston and West Ham (6-2), then lost their Champions League qualifier and got beaten in three of their first six Premiership games.

From there, Ange Postecoglou revitalised the entire operation with his coaching, his judgement and his personality. He signed brilliantly. He spoke wonderfully. His team took off and became champions. The buzz has returned to Celtic Park. Postecoglou has been immense.

B is for Broony

After 787 games across 19 years, featuring 23 major trophies and 55 Scotland caps, Scott Brown retired as a footballer. He was 36 when he finally packed it in and for the longest time he was the most talked about player in the Scottish game.

Some loved him, some loathed him. Everybody had an opinion about him. He was a colossal presence on the landscape and it will be a while before we see another one like him. Now manager of Fleetwood Town. Watch that space.

C is for Cinch

Rangers don't display any Cinch branding in their stadium and are engaged in a legal battle with the SPFL over the deal that saw the online car sales company sponsor the leagues.

Ironically, the spat has only elevated the Cinch brand in Scotland. For small money, they've gained huge exposure. "Cinched it" has entered the mainstream of Scottish football. Rylan, the TV presenter and Cinch promoter, must be bemused at his new-found fanclub.

D is for Dick Campbell

For so long, it looked like a fairytale story was going to come true in the Championship. Arbroath led the way. Improbable and fantastic. Dick Campbell was all over television and radio. He popped up on BBC Radio 5 Live and elsewhere.

Those unaware of his existence were charmed by his personality and the story of his no-hope team who looked destined for the Premiership. Alas, Kilmarnock reeled them in and then Inverness did them in the play-offs. What might have been.

E is for Europa League

Where do you start? Epic doesn't quite cover it. Rangers played 19 games in Europe, caused an absolute sensation by knocking out Borussia Dortmund, then continued a dizzying adventure with dramatic and unforgettable wins over Red Star Belgrade, Braga and RB Leipzig.

The exodus to Seville was something else. They were one penalty kick away from immortality. So incredibly close, so painfully far away.

Rangers fans in Glasgow and Seville were heartbroken after defeat in Seville

F is for falling down

We should all have shaken our heads in dismay at Charlie Adam's dive against St Johnstone but it was impossible to remain po-faced such was the magnificence of the moment. The thing was hilarious and almost addictive. People confessed to watching it on a loop, one hundred times and more.

Adam soaked up the stick with good grace. He's retired now. He's had a terrific career. He was pulling out the wonder strikes to the end.

G is for gamble

Rangers pushed the boat out for Aaron Ramsey in January, the Juventus player arriving in a fanfare. Ramsey's backstory shows what an exceptional footballer he has been, but injury has been cruel to him and he was barely a shadow of his old self in Scotland.

He would have cost a fortune in wages, but he will be remembered for one thing only - missing the key penalty against Eintracht Frankfurt in Seville.

H is for happy ending

Gary Maley was a Livingston player for six years without ever appearing in a Premiership game. All that changed for the goalkeeper 15 minutes from the end of Livi's final game of the season.

Trailing 1-0 to Dundee, Maley came on between the sticks and his side duly went on to win 2-1. What was tremendous was that Maley is 39 and this was his final game. Worth waiting for.

I is for immortal

The death of Walter Smith in October had a major impact on Rangers supporters, but not just Rangers supporters. He was respected and revered far and wide, a great football man and a thoroughly good person. He had presence and wit and intelligence. He was a compelling individual, sorely missed.

J is for Jambos

Best of the rest, by a street. Outside of less than a handful of clubs, the Premiership was poor stuff this season, but Hearts made strides under Robbie Neilson.

They signed well, made a cup final, strolled into third place and are guaranteed group-stage European football next season, That means £4m-plus. A fine return to the top flight, led by the outstanding Craig Gordon, still a wondrous goalkeeper at 39.

K is for Kyogo

Had he not missed virtually half a league season, Kyogo Furuhashi would have been pushing hard for all the player of the year prizes. He's been a brilliant addition to the Scottish game, a real gem for Celtic.

Quick, elusive, lethal, he climbed off the treatment table and won Celtic the League Cup. The Japan forward finished with 20 goals from 39 games. The best of Kyogo is yet to come, you feel.

L is for Lyndon

There are bigger names in Clarke's squad, there are more talented players operating at higher levels, but remember how this magnificent run started for the national team?

It started with big Lyndon Dykes scoring the winner against Moldova last September, then reached another gear when he scored the winner against Austria in Vienna, then he scored in the 3-2 thriller against Israel at Hampden, then he scored again, another winner late on in an anxious game against the Faroes.

Che Adams might be the striker of choice right now, but Dykes has done a monumental job for his adopted land.

M is for mighty almost falling

Ah, Scottish football. Let's take the Cinderella story from last season - St Johnstone - and make them a horror story instead. Let's bring their world crashing to earth with a relegation battle that went all the way to the play-offs. Selling some of your best talent on deadline day - and not replacing them properly - is asking for trouble and trouble is what St Johnstone got.

They saved themselves in the end, much to Callum Davidson's relief. He said staying up was a bigger achievement than winning two cups the previous season. It was the stress talking. Saints need to get their act together, though. They had a lousy season.

SNS

St Johnstone extended their top-flight status to a 14th year with play-off final victory over Inverness CT

N is for nightmare

Hibs finished a dismal eighth, Aberdeen a frankly embarrassing 10th. Hibs sacked Jack Ross at the first sign of trouble and owner Ron Gordon now appears to regret that decision.

He replaced him with Shaun Maloney and Gordon now seems to regret that decision, too. He's appointed Lee Johnson. Hibs fans could be forgiven for being petrified by Gordon's decision-making.

Aberdeen have made so many bad decisions it's hard to know where to begin, The gamble on the rookie Stephen Glass unravelled. That was on Dave Cormack, a man who has invested a lot of money into his club but how much of it has he invested wisely?

Player recruitment has been wretched. Jim Goodwin, off to a poor start as manager, had better hit the jackpot in the market in the summer. Cormack will be sweating.

O is for on the up

In 2018-19, Cove were a Highland League team with ambition. Now they're about to become a Championship club with a focus on going higher. Their rise has been exciting and inexorable.

They're part of a new wave of clubs. Kelty Hearts are coming in their slipstream. Following their promotion from the Lowland League to League 2 in 2021, Kelty ran away with the division and will play League 1 football next season. This is how the pyramid was supposed to be.

P is for predators

Over the last quarter of a century, the leading scorer in the top flight has weighed in with anywhere between 18 and 35 goals, with the average being 25. This season it was only 13, Regan Charles-Cook and Giorgos Giakoumakis sharing top spot.

It's a remarkably low total, but there are reasons. Kemar Roofe scored 10 league goals from only 19 games. Alfredo Morelos netted 11 but missed a dozen games through injury. Giakoumakis finished the season strongly but only played 21 matches. Kyogo played 20 and got 12 goals. If there was a shortage of goals from the principal strikers, the shortage of games was the cause.

Q is for quote

When Mark McGhee claimed that Charlie Mulgrew's goal in the Dundee derby in April was intended as a cross and not a shot, the United veteran's response was memorable. "Did he, aye? Ragin', isn't he? Fuming. That sounds bitter, that." McGhee lost the match and he lost the verbals, too.

R is for racism

In September, a Motherwell Under-14 team walked off the pitch after alleging their team-mate had been racially abused. In March, an 84-year-old was charged in connection with a reported hate crime at a Highland League match between Huntly and Keith.

A group of Rangers fans sang racist songs about Kyogo on a bus to Dingwall. There were other stories about alleged abuse of Regan Charles-Cook, Jeando Fuchs, Rico Quitongo and more. This is not going away. Nor is sectarianism. We've long since given up hope that the SPFL will actually do anything about this. It remains depressing.

S is for sorry mess

The David Goodwillie saga was a desperate thing. Goodwillie, ruled to be a rapist by a civil court, moved from Clyde to Raith Rovers, a transfer that sparked fury among the Raith support, Val McDermid chief among them. The crime writer withdrew her financial support and suddenly the story went far beyond Scotland.

The Raith board, tone deaf in the beginning, relented and pulled the plug on the deal but only after terrible damage was done to the club's reputation. Clyde tried to re-sign the striker but there was protest there, too, and it didn't happen.

There wasn't much thought for Goodwillie's victim in all of this. Goodwillie still hasn't spoken a word about it.

T is for Tim Akinola

The Arsenal loanee thought he was joining Dundee in January only to realise it was United he was moving to. Confusion reigned throughout his brief time in the city. He had an injury, played 45 minutes and then returned to his parent club. Thanks for coming, Tim.

A tale of two loan players. United also signed Dylan Levitt from Manchester United on loan. Levitt has been wonderful. At 21, he looks like he could go far.

U is for ugly

There's a pantomime tit-for-tat surrounding the title of the Old Firm. It's feeble, but leave them to it. What's more serious is the behaviour among a minority of the fans, not just the songbooks, but the missiles that flew in some of the games.

V is for VAR

At last, Scotland is joining the modern football world and getting VAR in the Premiership, post-World Cup. There will have been an enormous sigh of relief among the beleaguered referees when the clubs voted it through.

This will clear up all controversies, won't it? There won't be any allegations of incompetence and bias once the technology is up and running, will there? Who does the VAR support, by the way?

W is for World Cup

Two games from Qatar. The play-off semi-final against Ukraine at Hampden will be an incredible occasion. The football world will be watching and all bar the Scots will be willing Ukraine on, for understandable reasons.

Clarke's Scotland are on a wonderful run. If they see off Ukraine and beat Wales in Cardiff then we're into statue territory. Clear a space in the Hampden car park for a sculpture of King Clarke.

SNS

Manager Steve Clarke is two wins away from ending Scotland's 24-year World Cup absence

X is for XI

As in, the best XI of the season: Gordon, Tavernier, Carter-Vickers, Bassey, Kingsley, O'Riley, Lundstram, McGregor, Abada, Kyogo, Jota.

Y is for You'll Never Walk Alone

Another Lisbon Lion was lost during the season, Bertie Auld passing away in November at the age of 83. But in many senses he will never be gone because the Lisbon Lions will live forever in Celtic's history and in the hearts of everybody who supports them. Their story just gets passed down the generations. They're a timeless team. A group of footballers like no other this country has ever known.

Z is for zen

We can only imagine the zen energy, the glorious karma, Derek McInnes would have felt as his Kilmarnock side won the Championship while his old team, Aberdeen, toiled horribly in the Premiership. There is no love lost between McInnes and his old boss Cormack. Killie versus Aberdeen in the new season will be a popcorn moment.

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