It’s Liz Hurley’s 50th birthday on 10th June which means that statement is irrelevant to this facebook page on at least two counts.
Through gritted teeth then, it’s George Burley’s 59th birthday on 3rd June. George won eleven caps for Scotland between 1979 and 1982 and was a non-playing member of the Spain 82 World Cup Finals squad. The attached image of George the player is from the programme for the 1980 Scotland-England match which the visitors won 2-0. The Ipswich Town ‘Tractor Boy’ got his eighth cap that day when he replaced St. Mirren’s Iain Munro after 62 minutes.On a more positive note Hurly-Burley also played in Euro-qualifiers where we skelped Norway 4-0 in Oslo and Portugal 4-1 at Hampden.
George also has the distinction of being one of that rare group who have both played for and managed their country – achievements that supporters like myself can only dream about. Sometimes however the dreams turn into nightmares and I still regularly wake up screaming ‘for Chissakes will someone mark Ramsey!?!’
The managerial image is from the programme for the 2008 friendly against Croatia. It was the ‘scream-team’s’ first game in charge and it ended in a 1-1 draw.
A decent, Ayrshire man is our George [so no doubt I’ll incur the wrath of Hamish Husband] but the managerial memories are still painful and even his initials upset me! On the basis though of – ‘It’s only a game’ – a very happy birthday to you Mr. Burley.
Robert Marshall
Footnote:-
SEB&T editor Robert Marshall and I (Alan Nelson) had Ian Munro as a PE teacher when he was a young St Mirren player I was surprised that he made it as a footballer -especially a defender – as I always thought that he was too nice/compassionate/caring an individual [eg He didn’t shout at me when I dropped the bean bags!]. Comparing Iain Munro to someone like Graeme Souness would be a bit like comparing a goldfish to a pirhana! Souness would probably have had me greetin….
First posted on Facebook June 1st, 2015
The Scotland Epistles Football Magazine 
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