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Fastest league winners across the divisions.


buchan30

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I have had a quick google as i am trying to find out the fastest winners of the leagues in Scotland to help with my sons project at school. With Falkirk and Stenny doing so well, i thought it may be worth having a look. Apart from Rangers win in 2019/20 I can’t seem to find much information on the fastest a league has been won in Scotland. Obviously there will be factors like their only being two leagues at one point, but just looking for someone to point me in the right direction.
 

TIA. 

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2 hours ago, buchan30 said:

I have had a quick google as i am trying to find out the fastest winners of the leagues in Scotland to help with my sons project at school. With Falkirk and Stenny doing so well, i thought it may be worth having a look. Apart from Rangers win in 2019/20 I can’t seem to find much information on the fastest a league has been won in Scotland. Obviously there will be factors like their only being two leagues at one point, but just looking for someone to point me in the right direction. TIA. 

Titles were sometimes won before Christmas in early days IIRC, indeed possibly even in autumn... before WWI the Scottish League generally ran Aug-Dec, and supplementary leagues Jan-Apr.

@craigkillie ?

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Statto.com used to be great for viewing historical league positions by date, but it's always been broken or offline any time I've tried in the past few years.

Is there another site that can be used in this manner?

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In terms of date, the earliest a league was ever won was 17th December, which was Rangers in 1898/99 as shown above.

That title was won with 4 of their 18 games to spare, which is 22.2% of the season - this is the record for the top flight, and was repeated again by Rangers the following season (1899/00).

If we extend it to include all divisions of the Scottish League, there is one more entry which matches that 22.2% tally - that was Rangers again, when they won the 2013/14 League 1 title with 8 of their 36 games remaining.

I've not actually updated my specific spreadsheet for this beyond 2016/17, but I don't think there's anything I've missed in the meantime.

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3 hours ago, BFTD said:

Statto.com used to be great for viewing historical league positions by date, but it's always been broken or offline any time I've tried in the past few years.

Is there another site that can be used in this manner?

Scottish Football League info App on Play Store.

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4 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Bo'ness Athletic last season, EOSL 3. Probably not the level the OP is looking for.

Bo'ness Athletic only actual won on April 14th with 7 games (19%) left.

 

1 hour ago, craigkillie said:

In terms of date, the earliest a league was ever won was 17th December, which was Rangers in 1898/99 as shown above.

That title was won with 4 of their 18 games to spare, which is 22.2% of the season - this is the record for the top flight, and was repeated again by Rangers the following season (1899/00).

If we extend it to include all divisions of the Scottish League, there is one more entry which matches that 22.2% tally - that was Rangers again, when they won the 2013/14 League 1 title with 8 of their 36 games remaining.

I've not actually updated my specific spreadsheet for this beyond 2016/17, but I don't think there's anything I've missed in the meantime.

Superb.

What's the earliest anybody's completed all their games?

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On 21/02/2024 at 18:04, HibeeJibee said:

What's the earliest anybody's completed all their games?

 

The earliest date is 7th December. Hearts played their 18th and final match of the 1901/02 season on 7th December 1901 - they lost 2-0 away to Dundee, had they won they would have gone top of the league, but Rangers would have had four games in hand and Celtic would have had three. Ultimately both finished above Hearts. Queen's Park had only played 11 games by this stage, and found themselves 10 points behind Hearts with 7 games in hand.

There have been just 8 instances of a team completing their season before the end of December, and all of them came between 1898 and 1901, with 5 of them in the 1898/99 season.

7th December - Hearts (1901/02)
24th December - Hibs (1898/99)
24th December - St Bernard's (1898/99)
25th December - Hearts (1897/88)
30th December - St Mirren (1899/00)
31st December - Morton (1898/99)
31st December - St Mirren (1898/99)
31st December - Third Lanark (1898/99)

Edited by craigkillie
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14 hours ago, craigkillie said:

I've not actually updated my specific spreadsheet for this beyond 2016/17, but I don't think there's anything I've missed in the meantime.

Relational database administrators everywhere fainting at the thought of this all being kept in spreadsheets!

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9 hours ago, craigkillie said:

Most of my stuff is kept in a database, but I had put together the league winning stuff before I really had that all set up and haven't bothered updating.

If it works…

Ran into this when assigned to an office at work while disqualified for live traffic. The database they had was, well, mouldering but did the job it was needed for. Then they needed an update, and no one knew how to do it…so I brute forced a spreadsheet solution with a program almost anyone can use. It’s not pretty, and it’s clunky to modify, but it’s very “simple” in its way.

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  • 1 month later...

East Fife won the Scottish Third Division in Season 2007-08 on March 15th, with I think 7 games still to go, This gave us a points total of 74, 26 points ahead of second place Stranraer!!!

Seem to recall that we had a couple of games postponed earlier in the winter and if he had played them we would obviously have won it sooner - but then again I may have just dreamt that bit up!!!

eta

Think I did dream that up, I’m confusing it with when we won the League in 2015-16!!!

Edited by King Kebab
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Queen of the South infamously clinched the 2nd Division title in 2012/13 after the snow had been cleared off Forfar's pitch!

It was actually on Wednesday 27th March 2013 so was a fairly unseasonal snowfall but it only went that far in the first place because Brechin, who were 3rd but had loads of games in hand, had been unable to get games played at Glebe Park for so long. Eventually the league lost patience and ordered them to play some at Station Park, including ours. We still had 7 games left to play at the time (19.4%). I think we'd have at least matched the record of 22.2% left by winning it a game earlier if Brechin didn't have so many unplayed games, or if the game that was played then had been played on its due date.

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