Scottish Premier League: It was the year of the original Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia, Ronald Reagan was sworn in for a second term in office, Mrs Rooney from Liverpool had a baby boy and called him Wayne, Ernie Wise was chosen by Vodafone to make the first British mobile phone call, and, perhaps most historically significant, it was the year Bo and Luke Duke left our screens, The Dukes of Hazzard coming to an end.
It was 1985, two whole decades ago, and that's how long it's been since a team other than Rangers and Celtic won the Scottish Premier League. The following season the trophy left Aberdeen for Glasgow and the city has been its home ever since.
The statistics get worse. It's 11 seasons since a club outside the Old Firm even managed to finish second (Motherwell), since then there's been an average gap of 29 points between the third-placed team and the champions. Last season Hibernian finished 32 points behind Rangers and 31 adrift of Celtic, proof, not that it's required, that when it comes to Scottish football the Glasgow pair are in a league of their own.
Granted, it's been that way for most of Scottish footballing history, but it's the enormity of the gap between Celtic, Rangers and the rest in recent years that has added weight to the argument the Old Firm really needs to be finding a more competitive (and more lucrative) league in which to play its football.
That old chestnut perennially raises its head, although those who doubt that either club could hold their own in, for example, the upper half of the English Premiership, can point to Celtic's 5-0 humiliation by Artmedia Bratislava during the week and declare: "One rests one's case."
Some would argue that, of late, the English Premiership is no more competitive than its Scottish counterpart, but as Martin O'Neill pointed out, on the eve of his final season in charge of Celtic: "At least in the English league the matches are tough every week." He quickly added that he meant no disrespect to the likes of Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Livingston and the rest, but the point was taken.
So is this season going to be any different, or are the rest still playing for third? Well, one section of Scottish football seems confident that this season will be different, that the Old Firm will finally be split, probably by Hearts or Hibs, with Celtic finishing third. And these are the views of supporters of . . . Celtic.
"Strachan should resign to give the supporters their respect back," said one, quoted by the Daily Record after that Bratislava defeat . . . Strachan's first competitive game in charge. "When Strachan said he would make Celtic a force in Europe I think he was misheard: he actually said farce," said another.
Other extracts from that Celtic vox pop: "Strachan stood against the dugout wall as if he was waiting for a bus when the score was 5-0. He's out of his depth"; "The defence is made up of free transfers and that's what you get for nothing"; "We had a team of has-beens left by O'Neill and a group of never-will-bes signed by Strachan. No formation. No structure. No hope"; "I had a dream we lost Martin O'Neill and Jackie McNamara and then signed another failure called Camara before going out of Europe to a team of nobodies. Somebody please wake me up".
Spirits aren't all that high, then. But at least Strachan received one message of support in the Daily Record, from a Scott Young: "Strachan said he'd take Celtic to another level and that's exactly what he's doing. Keep it up, wee man." Yes, Scott's a blue.
Whether Strachan's group of "never-will-bes", amongst them Polish pair Maciej Zurawski and goalkeeper Artur Boruc, Japan's Shunsuke Nakamura, Guinean defender Mo Camara and French forward Jeremie Aliardiere, on loan from Arsenal, can help revive the team after last season's chucking away of the title at Motherwell on the final day, remains to be seen. Some hope for Celtic fans is that it's usually when so little is expected that the team comes good.
Rangers, who've added Jose-Karl Pierre-Fanfan (from Paris St Germain), Dany N'Guessan (Auxerre), Brahim Hemdani (Marseille), Ian Murray (Hibernian) and Federico Nieto (from Almagro of Argentina) to their squad, are, though, firm favourites to retain their title.
Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen are the most likely to put up any kind of challenge, with Hearts now financed by Lithuanian millionaire Vladimir Romanov.
Romanov is no Roman Abramovich - several of the club's signings this summer have been loan deals for unknown eastern European players - but his target is to make "Hearts bigger than the Old Firm". His new manager, George Burley, would probably just settle for getting a little bit closer to the Old Firm.
