The Scotland Epistles Football Magazine

I didn’t see Scotland beat Cyprus 8-0 in 1969 so the 6-0 demolition of Gibraltar represents the largest margin of victory that I have witnessed to date. I’ve also now seen two Scotland hat-tricks in the same calendar year- although to tell you the absolute truth I actually missed one of Steven Fletcher’s goals on Sunday evening as I was distracted by an inflatable crocodile – or was it an alligator?

Anyway, inflatable sharks, goldfish and scores of beach balls meant that at times, watching the one-sided, meaningless game of football took second place to playing volleyball, dancing, murdering songs by Erasure and the Beatles and general ‘fannying-about’ in a Euro 2004 white elephant of a stadium that is situated in the middle of nowhere.

Charlie Cooke will be 73 on October 14th. Charlie was one of a glut of great Scottish wingers in the 1960’s with the likes of Jimmy Johnstone, Willie Henderson, Willie Johnston and Eddie Gray all playing at the top of the game. Like Eddie McCreadie, Charlie was one of my early heroes as he was part of that flamboyant Chelsea team that flourished in the late 60’s, early 70’s and probably more importantly to me; he was always in the football cards of the time.

Having started at Aberdeen in the early sixties, Charlie moved to Dundee and then Chelsea in 1966. His first cap came in 1965 as a Dundee player in November, 1965 against Wales in a Home International at Hampden. Also making their debuts, were goalkeeper Bobby Ferguson of Kilmarnock and Jim Forrest of Rangers. Remarkably both Willie Henderson and Willie Johnston were also in the line-up, which must’ve ran the Welsh ragged as Scotland ran out 4-1 winners with Bobby Murdoch scoring two and one each for John Greig and Willie Henderson.

Scotland were to be less cavalier in their next game, so only Charlie of our triumvirate of wingers made the selection as Jock Stein tried to shuffle the pack of an injury decimated squad to face Italy in Naples in a World Cup Qualifier. In a masterstroke of Leveinien stature, Jock gave Ron Yeats of Liverpool the number nine shirt to confuse the Italians but really he was just playing an extra centre half. Those clever Italians sussed this and Scotland lost three nil.

Charlie returned to the Scotland team in June 1966 as World Cup Prospects Portugal and Brazil came to Hampden. Scotland lost one nil to Portugal featuring Eusebio and drew one all with Brazil with Pele, Gerson and Jairzinho all playing at Hampden. Stevie Chalmers of Celtic would score the Scotland goal.

After a two year wait, Charlie was back in favour as he played in the Euro Qualifier decider as Scotland faced England at Hampden in February 1968, knowing a win would see them through to the Euro play-offs. Unfortunately, like many a Scotland team, we failed to progress as we drew one each with John Yogi Hughes scoring the Scots equaliser. This was followed by a friendly with Netherlands that ended nil nil.

Charlie played in our first three World Cup 1970 qualifiers; the first in November ’68, a fine 2-1 win over Austria with Law and Bremner doing the damage. Then the game in Cyprus which Scotland won 5-0 with Alan Gilzean and Colin Stein grabbing doubles and Bobby Murdoch the other. As for the game against West Germany at Hampden, Charlie came on as a sub for Bobby Lennox in 63 minutes with the score one nil to Germany. Bobby Murdoch would score in the 88th to equalise.

As for that years’ Home Internationals, Charlie played in an eight goal thriller at the Racecourse, Wrexham against Wales with Scotland winning 5-3. Reports of the time suggest that this was perhaps Charlie’s finest performance for Scotland as the Scots lost an early two goal advantage to have the score sit at three all until Charlie seemed to take the game by the scruff of the neck and saw Scotland score two late goals for the victory.

Charlie also played in the one all draw with Northern Ireland but missed out in the Big One against the Auld Enemy and given we were pumped 4-1, maybe he wasn’t too aggrieved about that.

Cap twelve came in the 8-0 mauling of Cyprus at Hampden, 13 in the final game of the Mexico ’70 campaign as we lost 2-0 in Vienna to Austria. 14 in that muddy 3-0 defeat to Belgium in 1971 in the first of a new Euro qualifier campaign which we posted the video of a few weeks ago.

By the end of 1971 Scotland had a new manager in Tommy Docherty, who as Chelsea manager had splashed out a club record £72,000 for Charlie in 1966 but Charlie didn’t gain any more caps under him and by 1972 had moved to Crystal Palace.

By ’74 Charlie was back at Stamford Bridge and a resurgence in his career saw him picked for his last two caps for Scotland under Willie Ormond; for firstly a Euro Qualifier against Spain in Valencia which ended in a one all draw and then a friendly at Hampden which ended with a Scotland one goal victory over Portugal through a Artur own goal.

Happy Birthday Bonnie Prince Charlie.

David Stuart

Allan Evans will be 59 on October 12th. Allan is a member of that possibly extinct breed of Scottish player who has won the European Cup as it was known in old money. He achieved this with Aston Villa in May 1982 beating Bayern Munich 1-0 in Rotterdam. There were three other Scots involved that day too.

Allan’s defensive partner was Ken McNaught, who was never capped despite playing over 200 games for Villa. His father Willie, won five caps for Scotland as a Raith Rovers player in the 1950’s. I have mentioned Des Bremner’s one and only cap before which came in April, 1976 when he played for 36 minutes as a sub for Kenny Dalglish against Switzerland at Hampden. Des was a Hibs player at the time. The final player was a guy called Andy Blair; who was on the subs bench. Andy also played for Coventry, Wolves, Sheffield Wednesday and Barnsley in his time and won five Under-21 caps. Although, he never got to play in the final he did get to play against Barcelona at Villa Park in the Super Cup the following season. After a 0-0 draw at the Nou Camp, Villa beat Barcelona 3-0 in the return leg with all four Scots playing and Ken McNaught scoring the third.

Allan gained four Scotland caps in total; all under Jock Stein and was part of the 1982 World Cup Squad. His first cap came against Netherlands in a friendly at Hampden in March, 1982, Jim Bett then of Rangers also made his debut in this game. Allan played alongside Willie Miller that night. A Frank Gray penalty and a Kenny Dalglish goal was enough to give Scotland a 2-1 victory. Next up a month later was a Home International against Northern Ireland in Belfast, where Allan played in defence with Alex McLeish, who was replaced by Alan Hansen in the 75th minute. The game ended in a one each draw with John Wark scoring for Scotland. This game had been brought forward due to I imagine the aforementioned European Cup match being played on May 26th.

Allan would miss the next Scotland match against Wales at Hampden on 24th May but would find himself back in the line-up for the England game at Wembley on the 29th. Scotland lost one nil with Evans lining up with Hansen in defence.

Allan’s final Scotland game came in our opening match of the 1982 World Cup against New Zealand. Again he lined up beside Hansen but given Scotland lost two goals to the World Cup minnows, Allan was among the players dropped by Jock Stein for the next game v Brazil.

So that was Allan’s final involvement in a Scotland shirt but who knows if some day someone builds a time machine and we can go back to Malaga ’82, maybe with a wee word to Big Jock at half-time he will replace either Miller or Hansen with Evans and the disaster against the USSR doesn’t happen. Then again, given our seemingly endless torturous fate maybe we would still have found a way to shoot ourselves in the foot.

Happy Birthday Allan and all the best to you.

David Stuart

This came out in August 2014, which seems like a life time ago. This is a bumper packed 48 page gem which we printed thousands of hoping to sell by the bucketload. We did sell a respectable amount but are still trying to recover costs from it yet.

There are some great stories in it and it was reviewed in porgramme monthly.

We all love retro and nostalgia, in football they can be infinitely more uplifting than the present.  No matter what the travails of the past were there’s normally lots to smile and reminisce about.  Even glorious, or inglorious, defeats can seem preferable to current situations.  For Scotland supporters there’s nothing like the past – and this new magazine makes the most of it.

SEBT is best described as  a fanzine (though it says it probably isn’t) .  Even that is nostalgic.  A print publication, totally off-line, and with the  recurring themes of epic away trips, drinking (it is Scottish) , defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, the failure of the powers that be, drinking, incredibly inept players, and the odd glorious success. It’s devoted to the Scotland national team , and even an Englishman can begin to empathise a little after reading it.  Ok, we English have had our hopes dashed in big tournaments but at least we qualified. No finals for Scotland since 1998. That’s eight unsuccessful qualifying campaigns.

It’s not meant to be analytical nor to set out the path for progress. It’s a “collection of memories, thoughts, and opinions”, and is just that .  For collectors there’s a piece on the merits of ticket stubs against programmes, and one on cards from the 60s and 70s (featuring Scottish internationals of course).  And “Tit for Tat” is for the supporter who doesn’t have a theme but just accumulates “stuff” related to his/her team – in this case a 1974 Roary Superscot tea towel to Tennent’s Lager beermats to postcards from St Vincent &The Grenadines featuring shots from Scotland matches…

There’s a look at World Cup songs (and how at least Scots haven’t had to listen to any since 1998) and the clothes that Scotland supporters wear, plus many cross continent travel stories in search of Scottish glory.

It’s amusing, it’s opinionated , it is , as it says, “a bunch of Scotland supporters sounding off and feeling all the better for it”.  SEBT hopes to publish again in March 2015 , if it doesn’t then this first issue may well be a collectible itself. Peter Berry

Buy on ebay now.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SCOTLAND-EPISTLES-BULLSHIT-THISTLES-1-NEW-TARTAN-ARMY-FANZINE-MAGAZINE-/381421936768?ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

Here we are in the middle of a double header with the Polish misery behind us and the Gibraltar non-entity in front. Over the years around this time we’ve had some success but quite often it ends up in failure as you will see.

 Five years ago. October 8th and 12th 2010

 Avril Lavinge or Craigie boy as he is known to friends was in charge at this point. The first game was that infamous great tactical gem of going with a 4-6-0. Was it Rubin Kazan v Barcelona where Levein saw it and thought that was the way to go? Big difference Craig, was it was the Czech Republic and not Barcelona; I found it quite insulting at the time that he didn’t think we were good enough to get an away goal against a poor Czech team. One nil; no Plan B; Goodnight Prague.

Then came the game against the World Champions at Hampden a few days later and we almost got a result getting beat 3-2 against Spain . . . sounds all too familiar.

Ten years ago. October 8th and 12th . . . again 2005

Hans Hubert Vogts had started off in charge of our World Cup 2006 campaign in which we were generally very very poor drawing to Slovenia at home and losing to Norway at home too. Still worse was to come on October 8th, with a 1-0 defeat at home to Belarus, their goal had come in five minutes after which came 85 mind numbing minutes of failure to score; possibly our worst game under Watty Smith.

Next up Slovenia away and surely defeat but no this was one the great performances from Scotland in this century as we won 3-0 in Celje. The goals from Darren Fletcher, James McFadden and Paul Hartley were all peaches, if only we played with that freedom and skill all the time. IIRC this victory gained us the highest ranking points for any team for one game that year in the World Rankings. It also allowed us to gain a poor 3rd place rather than a very poor fourth.

Fifteen Years. October 7th and 11th October 2000

Wee Craig Brown was in charge back then. This is one of the qualifying rounds that we actually did quite well and started with a good away win in Latvia thanks to a Neil McCann goal. October 7th and we struggled to beat San Marino but eventually we got the goals from Matt Elliott and Don Hutchison to see us through. 4 days later and a good 1-1 draw with Croatia in Zagreb with Kevin Gallacher netting saw us make a solid start to the group. Unfortunately losing a lead to Belgium in March 2001 and allowing them to claw back from 2-0 down was part of our downfall. Sad to think that two draws with the group winners Croatia and only one defeat to Belgium was not enough to even gain second place.

Twenty Years. October 11th. 1995

We had already qualified under Craig Brown for Euro ’96 coming in runners up to Russia in Group 8 and a friendly was being played this night in Stockholm. We lost two nil in a game that had fives subs come on so it was not taken that seriously

Twenty Five. October 17th. 1990

 Whoo-hoo another tournament we would qualify for, this time with Andy Roxburgh in charge, Euros 1992. Having already beat Romania for our first game in the qualifying on this night we put paid to Switzerland; a team we haven’t always managed to get past. A penalty by John Robertson of Hearts in only his second International and a goal by Gary McAllister in his fifth game saw us win 2-1.

Going back further October 16th, 1985 was Alex Ferguson’s first game in charge after the untimely death of Jock Stein. Scotland drew 0-0 in a friendly against East Germany. We would fail to score in five games out of the ten that Fergie was in charge, which would ultimately see us fail in Mexico ’86.

October 15th, 1980 saw us draw 0-0 with Portugal in a World Cup Qualifier at Hampden but we would still make it through to Spain ’82 under Jock Stein.

October 29th, 1975, goals from Dalglish, Bruce Rioch and Norwich City’s Ted McDougall would see us beat Denmark 3-1 but a 2-1 home defeat to Spain the year before meant the damage had already been done in this tournament under Willie Ormond.

1970 and there was fewer games played back then and the nearest is in November 17th, that year which saw us beat Denmark 1-0 at Hampden under Bobby Brown with a goal from Derby County’s John O’Hare.

1965. If you think Thursday was miserable this one was too.

Scotland faced Poland at Hampden in a qualifying game for the 1966 World Cup on October 13th. A team full of stars including Billy McNeill, John Greig, Billy Bremner, Denis Law and Alan Gilzean went one up in the 14th minute through Billy McNeill but Poland would score not one but two goals in the last six minutes to win the game. After that, we were chasing our tails but did beat Italy one nil the following month with a goal in the 88th minute. However, with Italy beating us 3-0 in Naples a month later it was them that headed towards World Cup ’66. Of course had they known that defeat to North Korea and the ignominy that awaited them back home in Italy that followed; perhaps they might have thrown the game against us.

David Stuart.

The dream has died, but the nightmare goes on and on and on,,,,, I really thought we would qualify this time round but it all went ‘Pete Tong’. I blame Hamish Husband – was he not meant to be marking Lewandowski? Fair play to the Republic of Ireland though – they took four points off the World Champions – and I wish them all the best.

All I want to say about the Poland game is that I hugged David Stuart enthusiastically – twice – in the 45th and 62nd minutes – but ultimately it was all for nothing. Poland’s killer equaliser came deep into Richard Goughski time and as sore ones go it was like getting the anal probe with a cheese grater. See photos for flares and false scorelines.

Can you imagine the naivety of two guys meeting in a pub and thinking “Hey WGS is taking us all the way to France, let’s ride that crest of a wave and launch a Scotland fanzine”? What were we thinking? It was a near thing though wasn’t it; we nearly sold enough copies to keep us going. We had some good performances along the way. I mean look at those covers each one was better than the one before and we had issue four’s cover all planned out.
It was going to be a caricature of Wee Gordon holding the Henri Delaunay Trophy aloft with even tinier Shaun Maloney and Ikechi Anya hanging on to it.
Well bang goes that plan.So is this the end of the Scotland Epistles, Bullshit & Thistles? Is it whit! It’s time to kick on and move onwards and upwards; we will be bringing out an issue four in Spring 2016, even though Robert will need to remortgage his house to pay for it.
Things have been a wee quiet on the Facebook front as I have been working on a website. It’s still in its infancy and probably needs some tweaking here and there. The Facebook page has been great and we will continue to post stuff as often as before but with the website we hope to do other things such as galleries of Scotland football cards, stickers, posters, programmes or whatever.

Fresh on from their successful 1970 World Cup coins set, the guys from Esso came up with these crappy things; Squelchers. They were tiny booklets and each of the 16 covered differing topics from the World Cup Story to the Language of Football (?) to one for each of the Home International teams. This is of course is the Scotland one with Billy Bremner leading out the team at Wembley followed by goalkeeper Jim Herriot and you can also see the Colin Stein, Billy McNeill and John Greig in the background and I suspect it’s Tommy Gemmell hidden behind Herriot. Unfortunately, it’s 1969 and the Scots got pumped 4-1 that day.

Good to see our Gordon is still getting his Ready Brek in the morning.