The Scotland Epistles Football Magazine

11th June 1990

It’s the start of World Cup Italia ’90 and having come through a World Cup qualifying group with France, Yugoslavia, Norway and Cyprus and grabbed that second place, we landed in Italy with expectation. (Don’t we always?)
So, who took the choice that in our opening game against Costa Rica we would play in a glorified T-shirt that was our away top that year? Did Andy Roxburgh think it’s colours would spellbind the opposition? Did Mo Johnston and Alex McLeish suggest that the away strip went better with their ginger nuts? Or was it some sponsorship deal that meant we were obliged to play in it.
As far as I’m concerned the ‘away’ strip is the second strip, only to be played when our dark blue clashes with the opposition, other than that the away strip should be packed away and certainly not used for a major tournament to please sponsors. As fans and no doubt players playing in the dark blue of Scotland is what we dream about not the white, yellow and blue.
I’m pretty sure there was some wayward passing in that game and perhaps some of it was to do with the garish, bland colours we displayed that day. Of course in the photo of that day, was the non-entity that was Alan McInally. Two goals against Malta in a friendly a fortnight before had secured his berth in the opening game (Yes I said Malta) over Ally McCoist and Robert Fleck. This was to be McInally’s last game for Scotland and no wonder.