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I promised to post this photo the other day. It was in the 100 Years of Scottish Football Association book and shows the team before the game with Brazil on 5th July 1972. This was part of the Brazilian Independence Tournament in 1972.

Tommy Docherty was in charge at the time and he fielded a team with a couple of experienced legends in Billy Bremner and Denis Law, admittedly Denis looks knackered and there hasn’t even been a ball kicked in the photo. It must have been fairly humid in the Maracana that night in front of a measly crowd of 80,000. I am able to say measly as quite a few of them had played in front of a crowd of 119,325 at Hampden the month before in a one nil defeat to England. Bobby Clark also had some experience under his belt.

The Full line up is Martin Buchan (Manchester United), Eddie Colquhoun (Sheffield United), George Graham (Arsenal), Bobby Clark (Aberdeen), Willie Donnachie (Manchester City), Billy Bremner (Leeds United),

Front row; Asa Hartford (West Brom), Lou Macari (Celtic), Denis Law (Manchester United), Willie Morgan (Manchester United) and Alex Forsyth (Partick Thistle).

Scotland would lose the game 1-0 with Jairzinho scoring the only goal. The Scots had been given a lot of credit for their performance in the tournament with draws against Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia in previous games and although Tommy Docherty seemed to be building a good solid team when Manchester United came calling Tommy headed south to Old Trafford. Remarkably in his time at Man. Utd., he would sign Graham, Macari and Forsyth from this team making it six altogether. However, Law and Morgan would leave Old Trafford under acrimonious circumstances and justly had reasons to dislike Docherty for many years after.

Most of the team would gain a lot more Scotland caps but of the lesser known players, Alex Forsyth would gain ten caps overall which included four with Partick Thistle. Eddie Colquhoun won 9 caps altogether and was a mainstay centre half in the Sheffield United team for years. Both he and Bobby Clark would play their last Scotland game in that crushing 5-0 defeat to England in 1973, which was Willie Ormond’s first game in charge.

 

David Stuart