Scottish Football Map

We've got our first ever football map of Scotland this month by sports map guru Bill Turianski. The simple and obvious fact of Scottish football, known to most if not all of you, is the overwhelming dominance of Glasgow's Old Firm duo Celtic and Rangers. And it shines right through on the map and attendance table. Celtic, at over 57000 fans per match, get over 4x the crowd of third in the table Hearts. Four times! Seeing those kind of numbers (and the huge revenue gap that accompanies it) it's a wonder that the other clubs challenge for titles even as little as they do.

And a very little it is. It's going on 25 years now since someone else won the league title, going back to the heady days of the "New Firm" of Dundee United and Aberdeen, then under the guidance of a young Alex Ferguson. And the all-time titles table is bleak reading for anyone else, with Rangers on 52, Celtic on 42 and a clutch of others at...four.

But let's not get too negative. For a country as small as Scotland (population of roughly five million) these are still astonishing attendance figures and as high if not higher than any comparably sized country around the world. The Dundee derby and Edinburgh derby have grand histories all their own and a great many of the clubs are gathered together within a central band of the country, meaning regular traveling support and superb atmosphere.

And who knows, we're seeing a bit of a stutter to start the season from both of the Old Firm clubs. Maybe we could be in for a bit of a shake-up?

Bill Turianski runs the website Bill's Sports Maps - which features many, many maps, profiles of teams and a whole lot more.