The Scotland Epistles Football Magazine

First posted on Facebook, May 24th, 2016

Another man with an Aberdeen connection also sees his birthday today. Happy Birthday to big Doug Rougvie who gained one solitary cap for Scotland. In his Wikipedia page it describes Doug as a hard tackling and committed defender; what opposition fans would call a Big Dirty B. Doug was never the most gifted of players but committed he certainly was and he won a whole glut of honours with Aberdeen in the early 80’s including of course the European Cup Winners Cup in 1983. Rather remarkable for a man who played his first game for Aberdeen against Persepolis of Iran away in 1974!
It was no less a man than Jock Stein who would give Doug his one and only cap in December 1983 against Northern Ireland in Belfast. This was the first game in the last Home internationals. Scotland would lose 2-0. The Scotland line up was made of five Aberdeen players, three Celts, two from Dundee United and Graeme Souness of Liverpool the only Anglo among them. Mark McGhee would also come on, in the second half to make it six Dons at the one time on the park, remarkably Willie Miller was not among them. Scotland would go on to beat Wales and then draw with England at Hampden with the aforementioned McGhee scoring. This meant that the final Championships were won by Northern Ireland who retain the trophy, which I believe is on loan to the English Football Museum. When do we get our turn?
As for Doug he move on to Chelsea the following year; where he was not very popular due to his reckless tackling, however you do have to admire a man who was sent off for headbutting John Fashanu in a game against Wimbledon. He does have one claim to fame for Chelsea and indeed he is immortalised in song by their fans following a Milk Cup tie in which he gave away a last minute penalty after Chelsea had fought back from 3-0 down