How Scotland lost its grip on the Premier League trophy

England's top division was rebranded at a time when most title winners had a core of brilliant Scots. From Bosman to Brexit, here's what happened next

Nick Harris writes on data, corruption and the business of sport on his brilliant Sporting Intelligence Substack… and, every month, turns his focus to Scottish football, just for you. Please follow his outstanding work. And enjoy today’s article. Over to Nick…

Just five Scottish footballers have won a Premier League winner’s medal in the 32 seasons since England’s top division was rebranded.

In the 32 years before that, no fewer than 62 Scots played as part of title-winning teams in England’s top division.

The details of all those champions will follow shortly but a long-term decline in the volume of high-quality Scottish players can be evidenced by other metrics. 

As recently as Euro 96, almost 90% of Scotland’s international squad were playing in either good top-flight English teams, or at top-three Scottish clubs or at “big” clubs aboard.

By this summer’s Euros, that had dropped to 50%.

Forty years ago, no fewer than 35% of Liverpool’s First Division title-winning squad were Scottish, albeit with a couple of them not playing league games. By a decade ago, in the 2013-14 season, there wasn’t a single Scot in the first-team squads of any of the clubs who finished first, second or third in the Premier League: Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea.

Last season there were two Scots at third-placed Liverpool (Robertson, Doak) but none at Champions Manchester City or runners-up Arsenal.

Before getting into the weeds of these developments and why they’ve transpired, let’s go back to the Scots who have been key players in major achievements in England since the 1960s.

The five who have won one or more PL titles since 1992-93 were Brian McClair (four times), Darren Ferguson (once), Colin Hendry (once), Darren Fletcher (five times) and Andy Robertson (once). 

McClair, Ferguson and Fletcher won all their titles at Manchester United under Scotsman Alex Ferguson. Hendry won his title at Blackburn under Scotsman Kenny Dalglish. And Robertson won his title at Liverpool under Jürgen Klopp.

Scots have played a massively significant role in English football. It was a Scot, William McGregor - a draper from Perthshire - who in effect started the English Football League in 1888. 

Even before the legalisation of professionalism in 1885, the best Scottish players were being lured south by illicit payments. They were in demand because these “Scottish ball artists” aka “Scotch professors” - men like Jimmy Lang - had technical skills rarely seen south of the border.

The majority of the Preston “Invincibles” who won the first ever English league title in 1888-89 were Scottish. By 1892, Liverpool’s entire first-choice XI was Scottish. Arsenal are among numerous English clubs founded by a Scot - in their case by David Danskin.

So the fact that just five Scottish players have ever won the Premier League is amazing in its own way. And not in a good way. 

More Serbians (6) have won the Premier League title than Scots. And more Germans (7), and Belgians (8), Argentineans (10), Portuguese (11), Dutchmen (15), Spaniards and Brazilians (19 each), and Frenchmen (26).

As for the 62 Scottish players who won one or more titles in the 32 seasons from 1960-61 to 1991-92 inclusive, they were, for the record, as follows (they all played league minutes, although a few didn’t play enough to win title medals):

1960–61 Tottenham: Bill Brown, Dave Mackay, John White; 1961–62 Ipswich: Billy Baxter, Ken Malcolm, Jimmy Leadbetter, Doug Moran; 1962–63 Everton: Alex Parker, George Thomson, Jimmy Gabriel, Alex Scott, Alex Young; 1963–64 Liverpool Tommy Lawrence, Ian St John, Willie Stevenson, Bobby Thomson, Gordon Wallace, Ron Yeats; 1964–65 Man Utd: Pat Crerand, David Herd, Denis Law, John Fitzpatrick, Ian Moir; 1965–66 Liverpool Tommy Lawrence, Ian St John, Willie Stevenson, Bobby Graham, Ron Yeats; 1966–67 Man Utd: Pat Crerand, David Herd, Denis Law, John Fitzpatrick, Jimmy Ryan; 1967–68 Man City: Bobby Kennedy; 1968–69 Leeds Billy Bremner, Peter Lorimer, Eddie Gray; 1969–70 Everton Sandy Brown.

1970–71 Arsenal: Bob Wilson, Frank McLintock, George Graham, Eddie Kelly, Peter Marinello; 1971–72 Derby: John McGovern, Archie Gemmill, John O’Hare; 1972–73 Liverpool: Peter Cormack, Brian Hall; 1973–74 Leeds: David Harvey, David Stewart, Frank Gray, Gordon McQueen, Billy Bremner, Peter Lorimer, Eddie Gray, Joe Jordan; 1974–75 Derby: Bruce Rioch, Archie Gemmill; 1975–76 Liverpool: Peter Cormack, Brian Hall; 1976–77 Liverpool: Peter Cormack; 1977–78 Nottm Forest: Kenny Burns, Archie Gemmill, John McGovern, John Robertson, John O’Hare; 1978–79 Liverpool: Alan Hansen, Graeme Souness, Kenny Dalglish; 1979–80 Liverpool: Alan Hansen, Graeme Souness, Kenny Dalglish.

1980–81 Aston Villa: Allan Evans, Ken McNaught, Des Bremner; 1981–82 Liverpool: Alan Hansen, Graeme Souness, Kenny Dalglish; 1982–83 Liverpool: Alan Hansen, Graeme Souness, Kenny Dalglish, Steve Nicol; 1983–84 Liverpool:  Alan Hansen, Steve Nicol, Graeme Souness, John Wark, Kenny Dalglish; 1984–85 Everton: Andy Gray, Graeme Sharp; 1985–86 Liverpool: Gary Gillespie, Alan Hansen, Steve Nicol, Kenny Dalglish, John Wark, Kevin MacDonald; 1986–87 Everton: Graeme Sharp; 1987–88 Liverpool: Gary Gillespie, Alan Hansen, Steve Nicol, Kenny Dalglish, John Wark, Kevin MacDonald; 1989–90 Liverpool: Gary Gillespie, Alan Hansen, Steve Nicol, Kenny Dalglish; 1991–92 Leeds: Gordon Strachan, Gary McAllister.

There’s one really simple explanation for what happened to Scottish players in the Premier League era: post-Bosman the PL became a cosmopolitan melting pot. England’s top-flight clubs became unprecedentedly wealthy. And they could hire the best of the best, from pretty much anywhere in the world.

In the 1983-84 season, a decade before the mass arrival of foreign stars, there were just 153 non-English players in the old First Division, and most of them were from Britain or Ireland and the biggest single cohort of non-English players were Scots (56 of those 153, or 42%).

Liverpool had seven Scots that season (including Hansen, Souness and Dalglish) and Wolves had eight (including Andy Gray), and Manchester United had five (including Lou Macari and Gordon McQueen and Arthur Albiston) and on and on.

But by the end of the second season of the Premier League, in 1993-94, just 23% of the non-English players (41 of 178) were Scottish and a decade later just 8.4% and by last season just 4.4%.

In more recent times, something else has been going on. English clubs are relatively massively more wealthy than their Scottish counterparts, so emerging talents north of the border have been snaffled up in their teens by English clubs who are happy to buy and hoard youngsters with potential.

I’ve spent a few weeks trying to catalogue examples but while researching this noticed that Jordan Campbell for the New York Times / Athletic had already done a similar and more extensive exercise recently here.

That piece details no fewer than 30 under-18 Scots who have moved from Scotland to England since the “completion” of Brexit in January 2021.

As Jordan writes in that piece: “When Britain’s European Union freedom of movement rights ceased on January 1, 2021, as a consequence of Brexit, it meant no players under the age of 18 could be signed from overseas. Almost overnight, the Scottish market became more attractive to English clubs.”

Actually what happened is that a trend already established - of the “biggest” clubs in England hoovering up the best teenagers from around the world, almost inevitably to sit in their academies and not play - became more Scotland-focused. 

Whether this becomes a good thing or a bad thing for Scottish football remains to be seen, and perhaps we’ll have an answer in 5 to 10 years.

Will the best Scottish kids, snapped up by the best English clubs, develop to become stars for those clubs, and their country? Or will most of them not make the grade, and end up playing for non-elite teams?

I don’t know. Nobody knows. Which is part of why we love football.