The last time Celtic or Rangers didn’t win the Scottish League title: Hearts on the cliff of historic title originally appeared on Pittsburgh Sports Network. Click here to add SportsNet Pittsburgh as your preferred source.
The 2025/26 Scottish Premiership season has been presented in electric fashion.
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Scotland’s top flight is dominated almost every season by one or both of Glasgow-based league giants Celtic and Rangers.
This season, however, Rangers have struggled, while Celtic have also suffered, particularly in October. It’s the hearts that reap the rewards.
After the Edinburgh club defeated Celtic 3-1 on October 26, the dream of the league championship began to dance in the minds of the fans. They then won again 2-1 at Celtic Park on December 7 and looked one step closer to scoring.
However, the reappointment of Martin O’Neill after Wilfrid Nancy’s tenure was doomed saw Celtic return to title contention. Youssef Chermiti scored a hat-trick to help Rangers reverse a 4-2 win over Hearts at Ibrox on February 15 and move into the top three with three points in what will be an exciting battle for glory.
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However, Hearts benefited from Laurence Shankland’s full recovery and beat the challengers at the start of May and are now on the brink of the prestigious league title.
Sporting News looks back decades to the last time a Scottish club other than Celtic or Rangers won a domestic league title.
More: Updated list of Premier League top scorers for the 2025/26 season
Celtic and Rangers didn’t win the Scottish Championship last time
The last time the Scottish Premiership was not won by Celtic or Rangers was last year Aberdeen won two consecutive league titles in the 1984/85 season.
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The manager who won the title with Aberdeen that year was none other than Sir Alex Ferguson, who won the last of three Scottish League titles before joining Manchester United in 1986.
Since then, Celtic and Rangers have won the past 40 league titles combined, with Rangers winning 17 times and Celtic winning 23 times.
How many Scottish Premiership titles have Celtic and Rangers won?
In the 128th Scottish Premiership season heading into the 2025/26 season, Celtic and Rangers A total of 110 league titles were won.
Incredibly, these titles are evenly split between the clubs, with Celtic and Rangers both claiming 55 titles.
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Rangers’ nine-game winning streak between 1988/89 and 1996/97 helped open their lead, but Celtic’s nine-game winning streak between 2011/12 and 2019/20 has taken much of the advantage. Later on, Rangers did not play in the Premier League between 2012 and 2016, when the club went into liquidation and was forced to re-enter the fourth tier of the Scottish Football League.
All other clubs have won the league 19 times in total, with Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibernian winning four each. Dumbarton won two (including one shared with Rangers in 1891), while Motherwell, Kilmarnock, Dundee, Dundee United and Third Lanark all won one.
Have Hearts ever won the Scottish Premiership?
Yes, Heart of Midlothian They have won the Scottish domestic league four times in the club’s history, albeit over a long period of time.
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The first Hearts league title dates back to 1894/95, and this was only the fifth officially recognized domestic league title. They won the title again two years later in 1896/97, then had to wait more than half a century for their next domestic title.
Hearts won the league for the third time in 1957/58 and again two years later in 1959/60, their most recent league title.
Hearts have finished runners-up on five occasions since then, the closest of which was in the 1964/65 season, when they finished level on points with Kilmarnock but failed to win the league title due to their average goals that season. If it had been decided by goal difference, Hearts would have won the title.
They also lost the title via decider in 1985/86, when they were once again level on points with champions Celtic, but their +26 goal difference was lower than Celtic’s +29.
