Congratulations to the following Scotland players for being inducted into the Hall of Fame on October 30th.
John Wark
Gary McAllister
Alex Smith and Jock Wallace were also inducted to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame on Sunday evening along with this guy, Stevie Chalmers. Here he is from 1966 swapping shirts with Pele.
And here’s Pele trying the strip on among the other’s in his collection.
Great photo from the John Greig Book of Football of the Scotland schoolboy team of March, 1968 which beat England 1-0 at White Hart Lane. There’s only two faces I recognise; back row third from the left, future Tottenham player Graeme Souness and then there’s on the front bench furthest right cheeky looking John Robertson.
Just received this book in the post. Bought on ebay for just 99p. It’s from 1969. I thought it might have just been about Rangers and Scotland but there are a lot of different articles from other famous names such as Denis Law, George Best, Billy Bremner and Ronnie Simpson. There are also some good Scotland photos that I might feature in the future. Nice front cover too.
On this day in 1974 Scotland played their first game after the 1974 World Cup; a crowd of 39,445 turned up to see Scotland take on East Germany in a friendly. Scotland would win 3-0 with goals from Tommy Hutchison and the two Kennys; Burn and Dalglish.
So how else have those first home games after the World Cup from ’78 gone down the years?
Scotland’s first home game after the 1978 Finals saw a crowd 65,372 turn up to see them play Norway. After a disastrous World Cup campaign and even an opening defeat in their Euro Qualifying games to Austria, Hampden drew a large crowd turn out to see Scotland beat Norway 3-2 thanks to a Dalglish double and an Archie Gemmill penalty. Why so many? It was Jock Stein’s first game in charge.
After, the ’82 World Cup, 40,355 turned up to see Scotland take on East Germany once more, this time in a Euro Qualifier. Once more Scotland were victorious winning 2-0 through goals by John Wark and Paul Sturrock.
’86 saw a new Manager in Andy Roxburgh in place and after a disappointing World Cup a disappointing 0-0 draw with Bulgaria was played out in front of a crowd of 35,070. Truth be told it was overall a poor Euro campaign that time round too.
After Italia ’90 a mere 12,801 turned up to see Scotland start their 1992 Euro campaign in September of that year. Scotland would win 2-1 against Romania with goals from John Robertson of Hearts and Ally McCoist and would then follow it with a victory over Switzerland that would eventually lead to qualification to Sweden ’92.
After France ’98 a mere crowd of 4,000 was in evidence in Vilnius, Lithuania as Scotland started their Euro 2000 campaign with a 0-0 draw. Their first home game was against the mighty Estonia where Scotland scraped a 3-2 win. 16, 930 turned up to see Scotland and a late double from substitute Billy Dodds either side of an own goal saw the crowd go home happy . . . mostly.
September, 2018 who will be playing? Will the crowd be a massive 50,000 or a disappointing 12,000? Only time will tell but here’s hoping it’s after a World Cup Finals for us!
David Stuart
First posted on Facebook on 29th October, 2016
Happy 50th birthday to Ian Durrant. The photo is taken from the Scotland v Hungary programme from September, 1987. There is an article on Durrant in it, that states “Barring illness or injury, this evening should see the first steps on the International scene of a player many people feel is destined to become one of Scotland’s greats.”
Ian did make his debut that night in a 2-0 win over Hungary with teammate Ally McCoist hitting a double. As we all know fate had other things in mind for Ian as he was seriously injured in a tackle in October ’88.
He would win 20 Scotland caps in total, 9 of which came in his time with Kilmarnock but it should have been so much more.
Happy Birthday to Ian and all the best.
David Stuart
John Connolly
You only ever play 45 minutes of football for Scotland against Switzerland in a friendly in June 1973 and you still manage to get in a football card set. Well done John Connolly. (There is also a Mike Galloway Sweden ’92 sticker (non-British set) out there too and he only played one game as well.)
First posted on Facebook on October 27th, 2016
Born on this day in 1922 was Scotland and Rangers legend George Young. George played for Scotland from 1946 to 1957 and was Captain an incredible 48 times in his 54 cap career. In terms of the World Cup, George is perhaps one of the really unlucky Scotland players. In 1950 despite actually qualifying he was denied along with his teammates a place in Brazil 1950 as in a bout of hubris the SFA had declared they would only go as the Home International Champions; a defeat to England would see the Scots placed runners up which would have been good enough to qualify but the SFA would have none of it; so ‘Corky’ and the rest of the team stayed at home.
1954 and Scotland Qualified. Whoo-hoo! However his club Rangers, refused to release him and others to travel and so George embarked on a North American tour with his club side whilst his National side were playing in Switzerland.
He would play in the opening two games of the 1958 qualifying; two victories against Spain at Hampden and Switzerland in Basle where he played his last Scotland game.
George passed away in 1997 at the age of 74. To this day he still holds the record for most games as Scotland captain. The top ten are as follows;
George Young (48)
Billy Bremner (39)
Gary McAllister (32)
Darren Fletcher (30)
Barry Ferguson (28)
Graeme Souness and Roy Aitken (both on 27)
Archie Gemmill (23)
Colin Hendry (22)
and finally Scott Brown with (21).
Of course, the shortest Captaincy is the unofficial 3 seconds or so of John Collins in the game that never was in Estonia.
David Stuart
First posted on Facebook on October 27th, 2016
Happy Birthday also to Stewart McKimmie who will turn 54 today. Stewart was a great attacking full back who played for Scotland from 1989 to 1996. Stewart won 40 caps in total, all during his time with Aberdeen. His first cap came in a 2-0 defeat to England at Hampden in the Rous Cup of 1989; his last cap would come seven years on, in a 2-0 defeat to England at Wembley in the 1996 Euros Finals. In between Stewart played in two games in Italia ’90 making a subs appearance against Costa Rica and playing the full ninety against Brazil.
He would also play in all three games of the 1992 Euros in Sweden; his Scotland swansong would be the two opening games of the ’96 Euros.
However, there is one moment we all remember Stewart for and it was his stunning goal to give Scotland victory against Argentina in March, 1990.
Happy Birthday Stewart and all the best.
The Scotland Epistles Football Magazine 