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By the looks of it, Pat Crerand and if you’ve read his book ‘Never Turn The Other Cheek’ it will be no surprise, as he was very much a role model for Roy Keane, in his unwillingness to suffer fools readily and to hit first and ask questions later.
These pictures are from a game against Uruguay at Hampden in May 1962 and it looks as though Pat is trying to get at the injured player. Looking on in the first picture are Jim Baxter and Eric Caldow. The brave man in the second photo, holding back Pat this time is Davie Wilson.
Given it was a friendly, the ref may have felt a little bit lenient as this didn’t lead to a sending off, although Pat had been sent off previously for Scotland in Bratislava against Czechoslovakia 35 minutes into a World Cup Qualifier, which we lost 4 – 0. To be fair though to Pat we were already two down by this point.

Pat would play for Scotland a total of 16 times but would become increasingly frustrated at not being in the first eleven, so knocked it on it’s head by the late 60’s. This was not uncommon, as there were no subs allowed in those days, so a lot of players were turning up as part of the squad to find they had no chance of playing.
As to the Uruguay game, Scotland were defeated 3-2, having lost three goals to the Uruguayans with no reply by early into the second half before staging a comeback through late goals by Jim Baxter and Ralph Brand.
This wasn’t the only ‘unfriendly’ friendly of the era, as events almost a year later would prove. Scotland v Austria had at times, proved to be towsy affairs before and after the war with one or two punches landed by enraged Scotsmen in Vienna. On May 8th. 1963, (two days after Mr and Mrs. Stuart had their blue eyed boy delivered), Scotland and Austria were once again at it.
Scotland raced into a three nil lead in front of an enthralled Hampden crowd of 94,000 with two goals by Davie Wilson and a third by Denis Law. Horst Nemec the Austrian centre forward, then took the opportunity to spit at referee Jim Finney, who sent him packing for an early shower. Law scored the fourth in 71 minutes which was quickly followed by Austrian consolation goal. However, the wheels truly fell aff the Austrians barra minutes later as Erich Hof was sent off for a foul on Henderson, which was then followed by Linhart having a kick at Denis Law, who then decided throw a retaliatory punch. At this point ref Finney had enough and walked off the park and the game was abandoned after 79 minutes.
Although I don’t think there’s any footage of the match, there is a British Pathe one from Vienna 1955 which the Scots win 4-1. There are one or two crunching tackle in this one two and there also a goal from Last Minute Reilly in of course the last minute.

David Stuart

First posted on Facebook May 13th, 2015