By Ian Roache and Graeme Dey

CELTIC LAST night sensationally retained the SPL championship—a triumph that just six weeks ago had looked entirely beyond them.

Back in early April the championship appeared to be slipping from the grasp of Gordon Strachan’s side.

Having played one game more than Rangers they trailed their Old Firm rivals by seven points.

As the demands of competing on three different fronts and dealing with a fixture backlog began to take their toll on Walter Smith’s men, however, Celtic embarked on a fantastic winning run.

And last night’s 1-0 defeat of Dundee United—their seventh SPL victory on the bounce—coupled with Rangers’ 2-0 defeat at Aberdeen was enough to clinch the title by three points.

Striker Scott McDonald dedicated the success to former coach Tommy Burns.

Burns, who died seven days earlier, had been first team coach at Parkhead and McDonald was quick to pay tribute following last night’s victory which had been preceded by a minute’s applause for the Hoops legend.

“We loved him,” McDonald said.

“He was just a gentleman at heart. God rest his soul.

“We did this for you Tommy, God bless.”

McDonald famously denied Celtic the SPL title in 2005 when his two late goals for Motherwell against the Hoops handed the trophy to Rangers.

The Australian, who finished the season as the SPL’s top scorer, was delighted to play his part in Celtic’s third championship in a row.

“It’s something I’ll never forget,” he said.

“After three years ago, it’s great to put that right and I’m certainly going to enjoy this.”

Chief executive Peter Lawwell hailed the achievement of Gordon Strachan in becoming the first manager of Celtic since Jock Stein to win a hat-trick of league titles.

“He goes down in Celtic’s history as a legend,” Lawwell said.

“We’ve been written off and come back. It’s a wonderful night for this club.

“It’s been a week for this club that we should all be proud of. It’s been a very emotional week—terrible grief, terrible sorrow—but tonight we can be proud to be a Celtic supporter.”

Strachan was short and to the point at the post-match press conference.

“It has been an incredible night, an incredible season and I thank the players for their character and belief in their own ability,” he said.

“It has been one of the most memorable seasons I have had in my life.

“As I said to the players, I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and we have achieved what we set out to do this season.

“Now it is only fair that I go now and be with people who have supported and believed in us all season. Thank you very much.”

With that he departed.

United manager Craig Levein offered his congratulations to the champions but also expressed sympathy for Rangers.

“If you win the league you deserve to win the league,” he said.

“It was not about today’s result but about the whole season.

“And I am happy for Gordon because he went through a spell when he was getting a bit of stick. I know as a manager what he was going through.

“So it is congratulations to him and commiserations to Walter and his boys.”

Rangers defender Christian Dailly admitted missing out on the title, coming as it did on the back of losing the UEFA Cup final, was hard to bear.

“It’s devastating as we’ve worked so hard,” said Dailly.

“There have been so many highs this season and now a couple of real lows in the UEFA Cup final and now the league.

“It was always a tough task with the massive schedule that we had and it was tough to play so many matches in a short period of time.

“We never shirked it at all but it has been hard, especially when you have to win every match like Rangers always have to do.

“But there is not time to feel sorry for ourselves as we have to play a Scottish Cup final on Saturday afternoon and another big prize is on the line.

“Make no mistake, we will be ready for it and up for it.”

The Ibrox club will be without striker Nacho Novo for the weekend clash with first division Queen of the South after the former Dundee player got himself red-carded at Pittodrie.

“Nacho Novo getting sent off is something we could have done without but he got a bit too frustrated in the circumstances,” said boss Walter Smith.

“We are disappointed that we didn’t win the title but I think that the circumstances caught up with us a little bit.

“There are things we haven’t handled well and we have had problems in games after coming back from playing in Europe.”

Smith felt his team had been up against it—and not just because they’d have had to have thumped Aberdeen to pip Celtic to the SPL crown.

He pointed to the extra effort the Dons put into games against his club.

“I don’t think there was much in tonight’s match but we lost two goals from set-pieces and that is disappointing as that has been creeping into our play lately,” said Smith.

“People talk about us chasing goals here, but that was never on against a team who are always up for games against us.

“They commit themselves to a greater degree than they do in other games, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” he added.