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I don’t buy a lot of collectible photos but I saw this one recently on eBay with the late Sandy Jardine’s autograph and bought it. As with anyone who grew up around the Seventies supporting Scotland, Sandy was a favourite of mine and in the end it only cost me around £8.
The photo itself is quite interesting as it comes from a World Cup warm-up against West Germany on 27th March, 1974 at the Wald Stadium in Frankfurt. Scotland would go on to play both Brazil and Yugoslavia in the World Cup there too. Scotland would lose 2-1 but by all accounts played well that night. Kenny Dalglish would score our solitary goal.
Willie Ormond was obviously trying out a few players for the game with some making their debuts. Going from left to right the line up is; Denis Law, Willie Morgan (both Manchester United), Kenny Burns (Birmingham City), Tommy Hutchison (Coventry City), Pat Stanton (Hibs), Martin Buchan (Manchester United), Erich Schaedler (Hibs), Kenny Dalglish (Celtic), Sandy Jardine (Rangers), Thomson Allan (Dundee) and David Hay (Celtic). This would be Hay’s second and last game as captain of Scotland. I’m sure my Dad would have said at the time, they could all do with a haircut.
In goals for his first cap is Thomson Allan of Dundee. The goalkeeper position for Scotland was up for grabs as Ormond had dropped Ally Hunter after his howler in the Czech game at Hampden but even before that there was no definitive choice for goalie as Bobby Clark, Peter McCloy and David Harvey had all been used over the last couple of years. Thomson looks a wee bit nervous and maybe that’s why his shorts are pulled so high. Thomson would play in one more game against Norway, Scotland’s last warm up game before the World Cup. Scotland won 2-1 in Oslo with Jordan and Dalglish scoring. Winning his one and only cap was Hibernian’s Erich Schaedler. Erich would take his own life on Christmas Eve, 1985 and if you’ve read the excellent book ‘Shades; The Short Life and Tragic Death of Erich Schaedler’ by Colin Leslie you get a sense of how profound his loss was to those around him including former teammates; perhaps the most chilling is of Ian Redford trying to come to terms with it, when his death would leave others with the same sense of grief in January of last year.
For Erich the game against Germany was of particularly poignant for him as his Father was a German P.O.W., who remained in Scotland after the war. Erich would also make the squad for the World Cup that year.
Winning the first of his twenty caps is Kenny Burns and what a nice feather cut he has too or is it a page boy? Unlike Allan and Schaedler, Kenny would not make the squad, however he would play two games in Argentina unfortunately neither of those was the Dutch game. The only other player not to make the squad would be Pat Stanton; indeed this would be Pat’s final appearance in a Scotland shirt.
Bobby Robinson of Dundee would come off the bench and make the first of his four appearances for Scotland. Donald Ford of Hearts would also come on for his second of three games for the National side and he would too would make the Finals squad.
As for the German team, eight of their team that night would play in the 1974 final against Holland including Sepp Maier, Berti (the cursed) Vogts, Beckenbauer and Gerd Muller as well as goalscorers against Scotland; Paul Breitner and Jurgen Grabowski.

David Stuart

First posted on Facebook August 25th, 2015