The Scotland Epistles Football Magazine

First published on Facebook on April 26th, 2015

It was a great night for Partick Thistle but was also tinged with disappointment. On this night Scotland played Sweden and two-ex Jags were making their debuts and only appearances for Scotland.

Ronnie Glavin became the fifth member of the 1971 League Cup winning team to gain caps for Scotland. John Hansen and Alex Forsyth had both been capped by Tommy Docherty in his tenure as Scotland manager, whilst playing for Thistle. Jimmy Bone had also been capped by the Doc in 1972 but playing for Norwich at the time. Jimmy made two appearances with his only goal coming against Denmark in a 4 – 1 win in Copenhagen in a World Cup Qualifier. Of course, Alan Rough was also in the ’71 team but wasn’t capped ‘til 1976 under Willie Ormond.

    Although, only Rough would become an established Scotland player it does show what a talented side the ’71 team were, indeed Denis McQuade would also represent the Scottish League. If you look back the St. Mirren cup winning team of 1987 they had a similar pedigree with Lambert, Ferguson and McGarvey, all being capped by Scotland.

                On this night another ex-Jag would play also and would enter the Scotland record books for his unique scoring feat. Scotland won the game three – one with a Hellstrom og and Kenny Dalglish goal opening the scoring. Joe Craig would score for Scotland before his first kick of the ball, as he scored with a header after coming on as a sub. Thus his place in the annals of Scotland and pub quiz history.

                Alan Rough was in goals that night, so it was proud night for Thistle . . . and the disappointment? The fact that Glavin and Craig, both had to be Celtic players before they were capped.

The photo is of Joe Craig from Shoot magazine and as you can see he is proudly wearing his Scotland top, sadly in the article Joe’s ambition was to become an established international player. Alas, it was not to be but even sadder was that, Carly Simon was one of his favourite singers.

David Stuart

Always on the look for cards with players in their Scotland strips, here’s somewhat unusual ones. Released in season 1979-80 not much is known about these cards or as it says on the back Postacards. There was sixty in the set and were visually quite pleasing to the eye with their action portrait of players. Although the majority were contemporary to their release some like Denis Law, Bobby Charlton, the action was credited to an earlier date. On the back is a short biographical note on the player.

April 15th 2015, Happy 75th birthday Eddie McCreadie!

I suppose as a card collector it’s no surprise Eddie was one of my early heroes, as he was one of the Anglo cards in all the early cards series I collected. Although in saying that, so was Tommy Craig and he was never a hero for me (and probably for a lot of Saints fans too.).

Chelsea were one of the cool clubs at the tail end of the swingin’ sixties and Eddie along with Charlie Cooke made them one of my favourite teams at the time. The thing was Eddie always looked so mean in his pictures, never one to smile, he was more of a scowler. He was a hard player and there’s great footage of him kicking Billy Bremner in the head although to his credit he was concerned for Billy afterwards or maybe he was just worried about Billy’s retribution.

First published on Facebook in April 2nd 2015

 Can’t wait ‘til Euro 2016; well get stuck into these.

 I know some of us are lying awake at night in anticipation of Scotland perhaps reaching a major finals and being able to travel to France and follow our team for a fortnight and hopefully more. However, the really sad among us are dreaming of Panini stickers albums and other cards.

                Every major tournament has had its sticker album since the 70’s more or less but in the last ten years or so there are Panini Adrenalyn Cards and Match Attax cards. Come summer 2016 there will be plethora of cards to collect and if we’re lucky Scottish players among them.

            Can’t wait . . . well there is a set out there to collect now. The only problem is, it’s only available in Serbia. It’s been released by a company called Schoolshop and is a rather cheaply made sprawling set of 648 stickers. It has every competing nation in it including Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Gibraltar. However, we Scots are among the minnows with a measly 8 stickers, whilst our group opponents Poland, Germany and Ireland all have 16. It comes down to seedings; all those in Pots 1,2 and 3 have 16, whilst any below that have 8.

         It is quite a cheap set and I have only bought three Scottish players on ebay and there’s even a mistake among them. Below is the List of Scottish players and finally do you know of anyone going to Serbia soon?

265 Scotland Flag Scotland No club
266 David Marshall Scotland Cardiff City
267 Christophe Berra Scotland Ipswich Town
268 Alan Hutton Scotland Bolton
269 Scott Brown Scotland Celtic
270 Darren Fletcher Scotland Manchester United
271 James Morrison Scotland West Bromwich Albion
272 Steven Naismith Scotland Everton

Isn’t that Grant Hanley cunningly disguised as Christophe Berra?

David Stuart

 This article was written a few days before Scotland were due to play Gibraltar in the Euro Qualifier in March 2015. There was a lot of hype around the fact Scotland hadn’t scored a hat-trick since 1969 going into the match. Of course when Gibraltar scored their equaliser we all thought; Christ just give us a win before Steven Fletcher finally stepped up to the plate to achieve the long awaited hat-trick. Here’s hoping we don’t need to wait until 2060 until the next one.

1.       The last player to score a Hat-trick for Scotland was Colin Stein against Cyprus at Hampden Park on 17th May, 1969 in a World Cup Qualifier.

2.       Stein is not the only player to score a hat-trick in a World Cup qualifier. Henry Morris did this in October 1st, 1949 against Ireland at Windsor Park. However, Blackpool player Jackie Mudie scored a hat-trick against Spain in a qualifier in 8th May, 1957 at Hampden in a 4-2 win to help us actually qualify for a tournament. No player has ever scored hat-trick in a Euro qualifier.

3.       The aforementioned Henry Morris is the only player in the modern era to have scored a hat-trick in his only game for the national side. However, this was fate was achieved in the 1890’s no less than four times by James Gillespie, Alex Higgins and with four goals each Charles Heggie and William Dickson.

4.       Three players have achieved 3 hat-tricks each. Legends R.S. MacColl, Hughie Gallacher and Denis Law.

5.       Hughie Gallacher was one of the Wembley Wizards but it was team mate Alex Jackson who probably scored Scotland’s most celebrated hat-trick in the 5-1 trouncing of England that day in 27th February, 1927.

6.       Hat-tricks on home soil have been scored regularly at Hampden Park, Celtic Park and Ibrox as well as solo efforts at Fir Park, Cappielow and Underwood Park, home of the defunct Abercorn in Paisley.

7.       Denis Law is the only player to hit a hat-trick and end up in a losing side. He achieved this notoriety at the Brann Stadion, Bergen in a 4-3 defeat friendly against Norway in 4th June 1963. However, Denis did get his revenge by scoring another 4 against Norway a few months later on November 7th, 1963 in a 6-1 rout at Hampden.

8.       R.S. MacColl is the only player to score consecutive hat-tricks in 1899 agsinst Wales and Ireland respectively. Unfortunately, Ruud Van Nistelrooy for the Netherlands and Robert Earnshaw for Wales achieved this against us during those bleak Berti Vogts days.

9.       In total 29 players have scored hat-tricks for Scotland although most were achieved in the early years. Remarkably the first hat-trick against Scotland did not occur until Dennis Wishaw scored four for England in 1955. Scotland have only conceded hat-tricks on seven occasions; five of which have happened since our last hat-trick.

10.   Our equal top goalscorer, alongside Denis Law on 30 goals Kenny Dalglish, never scored a hat-trick but came close, scoring a brace of goals against Northern Ireland in June 1977, Norway in October ’78 and finally Belgium in December 1982.

                      David Stuart

First published on the Facebook Page 20th March 2015.

With the Scotland v Northern Ireland game coming up in a few days. I thought I would share this magazine cover. The magazine cover is from Jimmy Hill’s Football Weekly of February 23rd, 1968. I’m not sure if I have seen a football magazine cover so evocative of it’s time and with two of the greatest players these islands have ever produced on it. Two great stars side by side with Denis Law holding on to the ball, possibly prior to start the second half. Of course, George Best is probably saying to Denis ” If you think I ripped yer team to shreds in the first half, wait ’til you see what I’ve got for this one.”

Happy Birthday WGS