033-drew-jarvie

First posted on Facebook on October 5th, 2016

Happy Birthday to Drew Jarvie who turns 68 today. Drew was capped by Scotland three times in the early ’70’s, Drew was an Airdrieonians player at the time and is currently the last Airdrie player to be recognised at full International level. The most famous player capped whilst at Airdrie was the great Hughie Gallacher who was capped five times during his Broomfield days. Hughie also hit a double against England in this spell as Scotland defeated the Auld Enemy 2-0 at Hampden in April,1925. Three years later and as a Newcastle United player, Hughie was part of the Wembley Wizards team that destroyed England 5-1. Surprisingly given his high scoring rate for Scotland (24 goals in 20 appearances), he failed to find the net that day.
Back to Drew, who gained his first cap in the Estadio da Luz, Lisbon in April ’71 in a European Nations Cup Qualifier. He would replace Jim McCalliog in the 63rd minute. Scotland were already one down due to a Pat Stanton own goal and were to lose another to the great Eusebio with 8 minutes left to play. Also making their debut that night were Jim Brogan of Celtic and Davie Robb of Aberdeen.
Drew’s next game would come in the Home Internationals as Scotland faced Northern Ireland at Hampden in May. Scotland would lose 1-0 to a John Greig own goal. Again Drew would come off the subs bench but this time for the whole of the second half replacing John O’Hare.
His final game would be at Wembley where he came on for Tony Green of Blackpool for the last eight minutes. All the goals came in the first half as Scotland lost 3-1 with Hugh Curran hitting the Scotland goal.
And so that was it for Drew and though his time with Scotland may have resulted in three defeats; he shared the park with such greats as Eusebio, George Best and Bobby Moore so I imagine he still looks back on his time with Scotland with pride.
Happy Birthday Drew and all the best.

David Stuart