Happy Birthday Ted MacDougall who will be 69 on the 8th January. I suppose if you weren’t around in the seventies there’s a good chance, you don’t know who Ted MacDougall was. Winter of ’71 was big news; with Led Zeppelin releasing Zeppelin IV or the Four Symbols album or whatever you want to call it and ever since, somewhere someone is playing Stairway to Heaven on guitar but even more bizarrely the Montreux Casino burned down when Frank Zappa and the Mothers were playing and ever since that somewhere someone is playing ‘Smoke on the Water’ on the guitar.

But, even bigger than that on the football front; Ted MacDougall on November 20th scored 9 goals, yes 9 goals in a FA Cup tie for Bournemouth against Margate, which is still a Cup record. This story was everywhere for a few weeks and Ted would have big money moves to Manchester United, then West Ham, neither of which really worked out for him before landing at Carrow Road and in the yellow of Norwich.  It was there that Ted rediscovered his scoring touch and was selected by Willie Ormond for Scotland in 1975.

  1. Whenever I think of 1975 for Scotland I automatically think of Wembley and that 5-1 stuffing by England and as such think it was a terrible year for Scotland. However, if truth be told Willie Ormond was beginning to shape a team that would eventually dominate the Home Internationals in 1976 and 77. Scotland’s record that year was P10 W4 D5 L1 F15 A12. Okay there were an awful lot of draws but overall it wasn’t too bad.

Scotland’s Euro qualification was always in doubt after a 2-1 defeat to Spain in the first qualifying game. However, we started ’75 with a credible 1-1 in Valencia with Joe Jordan shocking the hosts with a goal in two minutes. It took until the 67th minute for Spain to get the equaliser through Mejido. It is in our next game that Ted makes his debut a friendly versus Sweden in Gothenburg where Ted scores the equaliser in the 86th minute. Ted started upfront in attacking team that contained Celts Kenny Dalglish and Lou Macari with Rangers forward Derek Parlane in it. Also, making their debut that night was Stewart Kennedy; the goalkeeper not the full back and Billy Hughes of Sunderland made his only appearance coming on for Graeme Souness in the second half. (Billy was mentioned in an article last year and Neil Emslie commented “Billy Hughes had a shoe shop in Sunderland called; you guessed it . . . Billy’s Shoes.”) Priceless.

Another friendly in May saw us beat Portugal one nil with Ted retaining his place, an Artur own goal saw us win that one.

Next up the Home Internationals and what looked like a pummelling by the Welsh after they went 2-0 up in 35 minutes but goals by the late Colin Jackson and a thunderbolt by Bruce Rioch saw us come away with a two all draw. A 3-0 win against Northern Ireland with Ted scoring in the 15th minute; followed by goals from Dalglish and Parlane saw Scotland heading towards with some confidence, after all England had drawn with both the Irish and Welsh in the preceding games. Nuff said.

June and it was back to Euro action and again a good draw in Bucharest against Romania with Gordon McQueen scoring in the 89th minute. After playing five games in a row Ted was omitted from this one nor did he face Denmark away in September with Joe Harper, then of Hibs netting the only goal in Copenhagen.

Ted started in the return game as the Scots beat Denmark 3-1 with Dalglish, Bruce Rioch and Ted scoring the goals in October at Hampden. However, the final game in the qualifiers once more saw us draw 1-1 with Romania but for Ted he was replaced by Andy Gray of Aston Villa and was given the final 17 minutes which was his final time in a Scotland shirt. Too many draws we see us fail to reach the Euro finals.

1976 would see Willie Ormond try out a few more forwards including Willie Pettigrew, Derek Johnstone and Joe Craig and so no place was to be found for Ted who can look back with some pride on his time with Scotland scoring 3 goals in 7 games. Ted returned to Bournemouth and Dean Court in 1978 for a couple of seasons and is so revered there that in 2013 a stand was named after him

And finally of course, Ted’s 9 goals wasn’t the biggest football story that winter; there was the little matter of a 4-1 trouncing of a team in green and white hoops by a team in red and yellow but I might have mentioned that before and ever since, somewhere, some Jags fan is telling someone about it.

 

David Stuart