“It’s been a rollercoaster few years for Heart of Midlothian Football Club, but after financial rescue and a surprise runaway success in the Scottish Championship last season, what are the Jambos’ realistic aims for 2015/16. MATT LESLIE looks at the campaign ahead. The new Scottish Premier League season gets under way this weekend and Hearts fans will be delighted at the return of top-flight football following a year’s absence.” Football Pink

“Although most Aberdeen fans would agree that the thought of the Premiership trophy being held aloft at Pittodrie this year was far-fetched, I’m sure there will still be some wondering if this year was really their chance to do something a bit special. Aberdeen have had another fantastic season this year. While last year’s rampant revival under Derek McInnes brought them the League Cup and their highest league finish in seven years, this season the team and the club have gone a step further in taking second spot in the league. They have been consistent and ruthless in dispatching teams in the Premiership, racking up an unbelievable 19 clean sheets so far as well. This is definitely title-winning form but Celtic sit eight points ahead of the Dons with only five games to go. While nothing can be ruled out, it does appear that Aberdeen will need to settle for second place.” Scotzine

“There was a certain halfheartedness to the way Celtic manager Ronny Deila celebrated his club’s victory over Rangers after the full-time whistle, performing his now customary fist-pump routine in front of his own fans. Bragging rights don’t mean so much against such helpless opposition. The blue half of Hampden Park — the age-old, neutral battleground between Glasgow’s two bitter rivals — had emptied long before, leaving behind nothing more than the lingering air of factionalism and toxic bile that comes with every Old Firm derby. Police arrested 12 fans for alleged sectarian breach of the peace, with scuffles between supporters running into the night across the city.” Grantland

“Hello and welcome to the first of a semi-regular review of the Scottish football season so far by your friend in pie Meat Filled Pastries (@MFPTasty). So what’s been happening up north, well apart from the whole referendum business in many respects it’s business as usual, well almost. Let’s review. European competition is something that starts in July and finishes in August north of the border, St. Johnstone repeated last years feat of beating a team that some people of heard of only to be knocked out by a team only yours truly and anyone looking for Slovakian bargains in Football Manger will have heard of while Motherwell went one better and didn’t even bother winning a game against a team nobody had ever heard of. Aberdeen fared better comfortably beating Daugava Riga, who one assumes were part of Latvia’s attempts to integrate rugby into their national sporting curriculum, before perhaps getting the best Scottish result in Europe so far this season by beating Groningen over two legs.” The Football Pink

“The new Scottish football season is just hours away and there have been some major changes since this time last year. No Neil Lennon in the Celtic dugout after leading the Parkhead men to three successive titles. A top-flight without Hearts and Hibernian after both suffered relegation last term. The promotion of Dundee at the end of last season does, however, mean they will face city rivals Dundee United in highly-anticipated derby matches in the Premiership. And the top flight’s loss is the Championship’s gain in terms of the Edinburgh derby, with the two capital clubs joining Rangers in what should be a hotly-contested battle for promotion. So, how will the new campaign pan out? Here, BBC Scotland reporters and pundits offer their opinions on who will take the four league titles and the two major cups.” BBC

“Unpredictability remains the most elusive quality in the Scottish Premiership. Nobody supposes that Celtic will fail to win the title for the fourth consecutive season, even if there is a new manager in place who will have to adapt to working in a different country as well as at a new club. The presence of Ronny Deila at Celtic Park does, though, add diversity to the intrigue that the top flight is capable of. The Norwegian suffered a major setback as Celtic were eliminated from the Champions League at the third qualifying round stage on Wednesday against Legia Warsaw. He must now hope that the effects of that disappointment do not linger.” BBC

“The World Cup has not even ended and yet the new season is already looming large for Scotland’s top club sides. Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes in particular has had little time to sit back and enjoy the action from Brazil, never mind the summer sunshine, with his charges first into action on Thursday 3 July, when they hosted Daugava Riga in the first round of Europa League qualifying. McInnes moved early to secure goalkeeper Scott Brown from Cheltenham Town and defender Ash Taylor from Tranmere Rovers while turning Shaleum Logan’s loan from Brentford into a permanent move.” BBC

“Born in Lurgan, Northern Ireland in 1971, Neil Lennon is a true Celtic fan. From his youth he set his heart on one leading his beloved Glasgow club to the top spot in Scotland. Well, it now seems certain that Lennon will be doing that again this season, seemingly for the umpteenth time and after years of turning out solid performances as a player and then subsequently as manager. It has though, not been the safest of jobs over recent years and it is for this reason that Neil Lennon is being inducted.” The Illustrated Game

Craig Gordon
“The keeper: the last line of defence. With a hapless player between the sticks conceding goals comes easily, winning games does not. In Scotland something seems to be working its magic on the training pitch, with a succession of keepers receiving great plaudits and having much success. Jim Leighton; Andy Goram; Craig Gordon. All names which send the Tartan Army dizzy with delight. But why, with the recent failings of the national side as a whole, can the goalkeeper always be relied on with a sense of pride? It is a fact that has been overlooked by the big national media corporations; when the English bemoan the errors from Joe Hart, Scotland’s keepers continue to provide standout performances.” Backpage Football

“Last year the sad, mad, brutal and beautiful series known as Celtic versus Rangers came to an end after an unbroken 125-year run. Proud Rangers—one of the oldest, grandest, richest clubs in world football—simply ran out of money. The reasons why this happened would not be unfamiliar to sports-watchers anywhere on earth: greed, envy, and overspending all played a role. There were unique local wrinkles—the Scottish media all but ignored the calamity at the same time as it was being masterfully reported and dissected by anonymous bloggers, especially the unnamed author of a suspiciously well-informed blog called Rangers Tax Case. But the demise of the august club, which was sent to the lowest league in Scotland last year, raises more universal questions for those of us who, like the RTC blogger and me, wear Celtic’s green colours. Should we gloat? Should we grieve? What does it mean to support a team whose greatest and only rival is gone?” ROADS & KINGDOMS

“The more-than-a-century old rivalry between Glasgow giants Celtic and Rangers is well established in the minds of football fans the world over. The colourful, boisterous, sometimes violent, scenes when the two sides meet are Scottish footballs biggest export, beamed to millions of people in hundreds of places from New York to New Caledonia and beyond.” World Soccer

“Even with Hearts in their current, diminished state, Celtic would never hand-pick a trip to Tynecastle immediately before a Champions League tie. What that in mind, Neil Lennon can consider this as a job well done in Edinburgh. The Celtic manager watched his players claim a victory they deserved over a Hearts side who, in fairness, offered more resistance than could have been expected. Gary Locke, the Hearts manager, is worthy of continued credit for his guidance of the administration-hit club as those off the field edge towards a deal which should return local ownership to these parts by Christmas.” Guardian

Virgil van Dijk
“At the start of the new season, the first of the Scottish Professional Football League, how are the fans viewing their teams’ chances? We spoke to supporters of all 12 clubs in the top flight – rebranded as the Scottish Premiership – to find out how they thought the season would go.” BBC

“Apparently, last Saturday, I and hundreds of others went on a hooligan rampage and “destroyed” the West London suburb of Brentford, while attending a pre-season ‘friendly’ between weakened sides from Brentford’s League One club and current Scottish champions, Celtic. That last event was actually how I spent my Saturday afternoon; which I why I was very surprised to discover my role in the first. Let’s get some things straight straightaway. The behaviour of the 6,000+ Celtic fans at Brentford was raucous and loud both outside and inside their Griffin Park ground. Some of it was, frankly, wrong; fireworks and drunks on the pitch during the game, for example. However, I would be hard pushed to describe it as worse than the behaviour of many of the football crowds I have observed in, ulp, 40 years watching the game at various levels. In fact, in some aspects it was fabulous. And I would certainly not describe it in the emotive terms used by others of a, shall we say, non-Celtic persuasion – many of whom were nowhere near London, let alone Brentford, last Saturday.” twohundredpercent

“The way forward for Scottish football is still somewhat blurred. League reconstruction talks have stalled while the Scottish Football Association and Scottish Premier League tear themselves apart from the inside. All parties agree change is needed, but that remains the only thing they can agree on. So considering the state of the Scottish game, is it time that Scotland’s two biggest and most supported clubs, Celtic and Rangers (known as the Old Firm), took care of themselves? Could a move to the Premier League finally come to pass? Ultimately, the chasm between the Old Firm and the rest of Scottish football is now unbridgeable.” ESPN

“On Saturday, December 29th 2012, two football clubs from Glasgow will take to the pitch at Hampden Park to play the unlikeliest of matches. Glasgow derbies attended by tens, and sometimes hundreds of thousands of spectators around the time of New Year have been a tradition in Scottish football for well over a century, and yet this fixture will not feature a certain world-famous team in green and white hoops. It will be an older, more historic fixture, all but forgotten prior to the extraordinary 2012-13 Division Three season, and shall provide a strange and fascinating insight into how Scottish football might have developed in a parallel universe, where Queen’s Park FC had not held on in the face of changing times and priorities to its cherished amateur status, and had cleaved to its place as the country’s pre-eminent and most innovative football club.” In Bed With Maradona

“The Scottish Premier League kicks off its fifteenth – and conceivably its last – season this weekend, after a summer when off-field issues have dominated, and the repercussions of which may yet have major consequences on the season ahead. It makes it similtaneously the most predictable, and in other respects the most unpredictable, season in the SPL’s history.” twohundredpercent

“The Miseducation of Claudio Reyna ended abruptly in late April. Reyna, the U.S. soccer team captain, had just joined the Scottish powerhouse Glasgow Rangers, and one chilly afternoon he wore a green sweatshirt to practice. That’s all it was, a simple green sweatshirt. To Glaswegians, though, the sport they call fitba is never simple, and if you’re on Rangers turf, donning green—the color of hated rival Glasgow Celtic—is like wearing a yarmulke in Gaza or a Bulls jersey in a Crips hood. ‘What are you doing, Claudio?’ said teammate Ian Ferguson. ‘Get that off you!'” SI: Holy War

Rangers make history out of chaos
“Rangers created history by winning the title at Celtic Park in a stormy Old Firm game which saw referee Hugh Dallas injured by a missile thrown from the pitch. One of the game’s few homegrown stars, Neil McCann scored two of the goals to give Rangers a first championship win in their rivals’ ground. But his contribution is probably the only consolation to the country’s football authorities after disgraceful scenes inside the ground. Television pictures beamed around the world showed referee Hugh Dallas with blood seeping down his forehead after being struck by a missile thrown from the crowd.” BBC

YouTube: Video Highlights Old Firm May 1999, Celtic Rangers May 1999

“Vice.com produce fantastic, well-made documentaries, and their latest product has been to shine a light on the bitter rivalry between Celtic and Rangers. With all the commotion engulfing the blue half of Glasgow at present, the documentary enables viewers to peek through the looking-glass at one of the oldest hatreds in world football: a hatred that could well be a thing of the past should Rangers collapse amidst their current turmoil.” 101 Great Goals – Football’s Most Dangerous Rivalry (Video)

Old Firm
“The Old Firm was the collective name for the Glasgow football clubs Celtic and Rangers. The origin of the term is unclear but may derive from the commercial benefits of the two clubs’ rivalry. The two clubs are the most successful in Scotland, between them having won 97 Scottish League championships, 68 Scottish Cups and 41 Scottish League Cups. Interruptions to their ascendancy have occurred infrequently, most recently with the challenge of the New Firm of Aberdeen and Dundee United in the first half of the 1980s. Since the 1985–86 season one half of the Old Firm has won the Scottish League and since the 2005–06 season the Old Firm have finished in the top two places.” W – Old Firm

“You can say what you like about Scottish media coverage of Rangers’ financial crisis but you’re certainly spoilt for choice. Unfortunately, that choice is all-too-often between parallel universes, with a tangential universe thrown in every time club owner Craig Whyte is within range of a microphone (Whyte’s common criticism of HMRC as “living on a different planet to the rest of us” is top-of-the-range irony, I’m sure you’ll agree. The announcement of the shortlist of Rangers’ bidders and the administrators’ report to creditors on consecutive days last week provided plenty of scope for media sources to reveal their contrasting takes on affairs, and their common ignorance.” twohundredpercent

“There will surely never be another Old Firm occasion as curious as this. Five goals and three sendings-off almost seemed like minor details. Celtic crossed Glasgow looking to take the victory which would confirm their status as the champions of Scotland. By full-time, the Rangers support celebrated as if they had secured the league flag and the visiting contingent bounced around while pointing out the wider reality. In this city, one-upmanship takes on an altogether new meaning. Supporters of the two city rivals simply love any opportunity to hurl abuse at each other, and most certainly to gloat.” Guardian

The Joy of Six: the Old Firm
“Six classic Glasgow derbies, including a title decider, two cup finals, 31 goals, a riot – and four players being charged by the police” Guardian

Green shoots of recovery for Scotland?
“Spanish-born Jack Harper, a midfield star in Real Madrid’s illustrious academy, and Chelsea Under-18 forward Islam Feruz, are two players at the forefront of a new wave of gifted Scottish youngsters that also includes West Bromwich Albion’s Scott Allan, Falkirk’s Craig Sibbald and Celtic’s James Keatings.” World Soccer

“It is one of the most commonly recurring stories of modern football. Should Celtic and Rangers be allowed to leave the Scottish league system and join the English football league system instead? It’s an emotive subject, for sure, and it’s one that seems to divide both supporters and administrators, with the only people that are certain of which way they would like to go being those that run Glasgow’s two giant clubs, who would like to utilise the vaster resources that would be open to them as a result of being in the more lucrative English system than they would get from remaining in England.” twohundredpercent

“The second Glasgow derby of the season saw Neil Lennon’s Celtic side take all three points as they beat Rangers 1-0 to leapfrog them into top spot, after turning around a 15 point deficit from the 5th November to go two points clear. Welshman Joe Ledley scored the only goal of the game in what was a deserved win for the Parkhead side.” Scotzine

“This week, Celtic start to show their credentials and there is a further recurrence of the depressing violence directed at Old Firm personnel.” ESPN

“Scottish football is in crisis. With Scottish clubs exiting European competition even earlier than usual, fans and the media are mourning the latest ‘death’ of the national sport. Newspapers and radio phone-ins are leading the now annual debate asking ‘where do we go from here?’ There’s no disputing that change is required. League reconstruction (discussed here previously) and a massive shift in attitudes and approach are long overdue, but that’s a conversation for another time.” Just Football