The Scotland Epistles Football Magazine

Following on from some of the feedback to the posting on the 1975 Scotland-Portugal match I thought I’d redress the balance and hunt out a programme from a Scotland away game with Portugal. Turns out the only one I have dates from November 2002 [co-incidently the last time the two sides have met] when a game in the city of Braga was billed as a Euro 2004 preparation match.

Portugal won 2-0 thanks to a first-half double from Pedro Pauletta. The home side were also able to call upon the likes of Figo, Simao, Rui Costa and Nuno Gomes. For our part we had Rab Douglas in goal, Paul Lambert was captain, Stevie Crawford and Scott Dobie lead the line up front whilst Lee Wilkie picked up a booking for his troubles. Portugal lead 7-4 in the series going back to 1950 with three matches drawn.As for Euro 2004 it must have been a fabulous tournament to stage and/or participate in.[Hopefully our game against Gibraltar in Faro will be our ‘Algarve Ascension’]. I still can’t believe however that Greece won it in 2004, but win it they did which surely gives hope to the likes of us. If memory serves, the Hellas Hurricanes did it with the aid of a German manager – now why didn’t we try something like that?