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Monday 31st July 2023

cinch SPFL Season Preview - 4 Days to Go...

Resident statto @splstats brings us the numbers as we count down towards the start of the 23/24 season

  • Stirling Albion are back in cinch League 1 for the first time in 8 years after winning last season's cinch League 2 title. The Binos finished 11 points clear of Dumbarton to secure the 4th tier title for the first time in their history. Darren Young's side won 21 games on their way to the title - they were one of just 4 clubs to win 20 or more league matches last season - the others were Celtic (32), Rangers (29) and Dunfermline Athletic (23).
     
  • Only 4 clubs have played in the cinch Premiership in each of the 10 years since the SPFL was founded - Celtic, Aberdeen, Motherwell and St Johnstone. Celtic are the only club to have played in the top flight every year since it was formed in 1890, Aberdeen have been in the top division since 1905, Motherwell have been in the top flight since 1985 and St Johnstone since 2009.
     
  • The 2023/24 SPFL will have 4 clubs playing in Edinburgh and 4 clubs playing in Glasgow, following the promotion of Spartans and the return home of Queen's Park. The last time Edinburgh had 4 clubs in the Scottish League was way back in 1948/49, when Edinburgh City, Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian and Leith Athletic all took part. 16 of the 42 SPFL clubs play across Scotland's eight cities.
     
  • Only two players managed to score 4 goals in a single SPFL match last season - Simon Murray for Queen's Park against Cove Rangers in the cinch Championship and Kane Hester for Elgin City against Albion Rovers in cinch League 2. There were a total of 19 hat-tricks scored in last season's SPFL - 9 in the cinch Premiership, 4 in the cinch Championship, 5 in cinch League 1 and 2 in cinch League 2. Hearts' Lawrence Shankland was the only player to score more than one treble - he did so against Celtic in October and Ross County in April.
     
  • This season will mark the 30th year since the introduction of the current 4 division set-up in the Scottish league. The 3rd Division was introduced in 1994, and has been won by 23 different clubs across its previous 29 campaigns. Spartans will be the 31st different club who have played in the division in that era. Of those 31 clubs, 6 have been promoted all the way from the 4th tier to the top flight - Gretna, Hamilton Academical, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Livingston, Rangers and Ross County.
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