The Scotland Epistles Football Magazine

Although we have no game over the weekend; generally over the years we have played games around this time with varying degree of success.

5 Years Ago. 16th November, 2010. Having played three of our Euro 2012 qualifiers and lost to the Czech Republic and Spain what better way to cheer the Tartan Army up than a friendly game against the Faroe Islands up at Pittdorie.

Two players had their debuts handed to them from the start that night; Danny Wilson of Liverpool and Aston Villa’s Barry Bannan. Wilson would put Scotland in the lead with Kris Commons and Jamie Mackie scoring goals 2 and 3 all before half time and that’s how it finished.

Perhaps the amount of subs in the second half spoiled the flow of the game. Six sub came on with five debutants among them. James MacArthur (Wigan), Cammy Bell (Kilmarnock), Craig Bryson (Kilmarnock), Steven Saunders (Motherwell) and David Goodwillie (Dundee United).

A few of these players have had some major changes in their lives with only MacArthur establishing himself as a Scotland squad player. I’m not saying there is a curse of Craig Levein but Steven Saunders has suffered injuries over the years and has played in less than a hundred games in his career since 2008; Cammy Bell has also been afflicted from injuries over the years although nowadays it more likely skelfs from benchwarming at Ibrox. (I know it’s nice padded seats there but it is only a metaphor). Neither Bell nor Saunders would be capped again with Bryson, Goodwillie and Wilson amounting to ten caps between them.

10 Years Ago. 12th November, 2005. Having failed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany nor make the play offs, we played another friendly against the USA at Hampden. Walter Smith was in charge for this one and unlike Levein in 2010 Walter went with a fairly experienced side with Paul Hartley and Garry O’Connor with seven caps each being the least experienced. The U.S. went into an early lead with a penalty through Wolff in the eighth minute and at one point looked as though they could overrun Scotland however, as the half continue Scotland came more into it and Andy Webster scored an equaliser in the 36th minute and that is how it finished.

Scott Brown would make his Scotland debut in the second half. The surprising thing about this game was that it was at Hampden and not Edinburgh with the players in the line-up. Hearts provided four players with Gordon, Pressley, Webster and Hartley all hailing from Tynecastle and Hibs provided Garry O’Connor and subs Gary Caldwell and Scott Brown. As for the Old Firm Shaun Maloney’s second half appearance would be the only Celtic or Rangers players involved. Of course with O’Connor being the only exception the other six ended up at one half or the other of the old Firm at some point.

15 Years Ago. 15th November 2000 and we have made a good start to our World Cup campaign with wins against Latvia, San Marino and a draw with Croatia all away from home, however this was a period where we couldn’t buy a home victory in a friendly and Australia were to leave Hampden with a  2-0 win. Again, it was a fairly experienced side that started with Craig Brown giving a debut to only Dominic Matteo of Leeds but a Brett Emerton goal in 12 minutes gave the Aussies an early lead which was doubled halfway through the second half by David Zdrillic. The Aussies in November does have some good memories though as we will see below.

20 Years Ago. 15th November, 1995 and it’s the last game of our successful Euro ’96 campaign. We had already ensured qualification so when San Marino rolled up to Hampden Park, it was a relaxed party night for the Tartan Army.

Eoin Jess kicked off the celebrations with a goal in 30 minutes and fellow Aberdeen player Scott Booth added a second just on half time. Ally McCoist would come on in the 48th minute and typically score in the 49th minute. Pat Nevin would hit our fourth and and an own goal by Francini finished the rout. So, Craig Brown and his team were heading for England and the Euros.

25 Years Ago. 14th November, 1990 and we have had a good start to our 1992 Euro campaign which would ultimately see us through to the finals for the first time in Sweden. With Andy Roxburgh in charge we had already recorded 2-1 wins at home to both Romania and Switzerland. Next up was the Vasil Levski Stadion in Sofia against Bulgaria. An early McCoist goal saw us start well but an equaliser in the 70th minute no doubt saw a nervy finish to the game; however another point on the road to Sweden was picked up.

30 Years Ago. 20th November, 1985. One of the biggest games in our history was played this night, as only two months after the untimely death of Jock Stein, Alex Ferguson was in charge for our World Cup Play Off against Australia. This was an extremely nervous night which saw Kenny Dalglish make his 99th appearance in a Scotland shirt and Frank McAvennie his first. With no goals in the first half and chances at a minimum the ground must have been getting restless when up stepped Davie Cooper to take a free kick in the 58th minute. 1-0 Scotland and within two minutes McAvennie, doubled our lead and gave us the breathing space for the return leg in Melbourne a few weeks later.

No game in November, 1980 to speak of; nor in 1975 but November 11th, 1970 saw us win 1-0 against Denmark at Hampden in a European Championship Qualifier with John O’Hare scoring the only goal.

However 50 Years Ago on November 9th 1965 a crowd of 100,393 turned up at Hampden for a World Cup Qualifier against Italy. Although, there was no Denis Law that night; the team included players like Billy Bremner, Jim Baxter, Alan Gilzean and Willie Henderson and making their debut that night, Bobby Murdoch of Celtic and Ronnie McKinnon of Rangers.

As hard as Scotland tried they could not penetrate the Italians and their solid defence and you do wonder how many people left early in the final minutes before John Greig released a power drive in the 88th minute to seal a memorable win for Scotland. Sadly defeat to Poland the month before had ruined our chances of getting to England and World Cup ’66 but this is still one of the great nights for Scotland over the years.

David Stuart

John White tragically lost his life on 21st July, 1964 after being struck by lightning on Crews Hill Golf Course in Enfield. John had been part of Tottenham’s great double winning side of 1960-61 and had made 22 appearances for Scotland from 1959-64. Six months later there was memorial match played between Spurs and a Scotland XI to pay tribute to John who like Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and others lost his life at the age of 27.

If you turned up at White Hart Lane on November 10th, 1964 expecting to see the John White Memorial Match; then you wouldn’t have seen much as it was a foggy night in old London town and indeed for most of the country and so the game was postponed for twenty four hours.

The Scotland line up which was managed by Ian McColl would comprise of Jim Cruickshank (Hearts), Alex Hamilton (Dundee), Jim Kennedy (Celtic), John Greig (Rangers), Ron Yeats (Liverpool), Jim Baxter (Rangers), Neil Martin (Hibs), Alan Gilzean (Dundee), Willie Wallace (Hearts), Ian St. John (Liverpool) and Davie Wilson (Rangers).

Among the Spurs players was Scotland’s Bill Brown in goals, Alan Mullery, Jimmy Greaves and John’s brother Tommy White of Hearts upfront.

Apparently it was a great game played in the right spirit with a great deal of skill displayed. Tommy White had put Spurs in front early on with Davie Wilson then cancelling it out in the 11th minute. Alan Gilzean put the Scots in front in 63 minutes with Marchi of Spurs soon cancelling it out. Bill Brown of the Evening Times then described what happened next. “And in one of the most astounding bursts of power we have seen on an English ground for many a long day they hit the back of the net four times in seven minutes. This was the schedule – Martin (75 and 79), Wallace (80) and Gilzean (82).”

The reporter goes on describe some of the Scottish players as such; “Greig and Yeats were their usual capable, rather stolid selves. The build of these lads is against poetry in motion.” Can’t argue there. He then goes on to describe the team captain that night; “But Jim Baxter’s smooth acceleration, the fluid lines of his communications, the instant reading of, and acting upon events that are his contribution to football, had the 30,000 crowd oohing and aahing in pleasurable alarm.”

Further on, “Alan Gilzean, in the shadows lately, convinced the local fans that he is a must for the Spurs ranks. Tall, solid, hard to shake off the ball, and gliding one in with his head in 63 minutes to make his tally for the evening two, the Dundonian had Bill Nicholson chewing a reflective nail.”

Gilzean would make the move to Spurs a month later for 72,500 and would prove to be a great success playing alongside Jimmy Greaves and were collectively known as the ‘G Men’. 

As for the programme it has tributes from many of White’s Scotland colleagues including the likes of Denis Law, Jim Baxter and Billy McNeill. There are also some photos of him in his Scotland as well as Spurs days.

David Stuart

Here’s another set of cards, although this time from the idiosyncratic brush of Philip Neil. Phil is a caricaturist who releases small sets of cards mostly of football players generally form the 50’s to 70’s but also does sets on famous actors such as Boris Karloff, Robert Redford as well as the likes of Frankie Howerd and George Formby.

Some of them you can buy framed on Amazon or like this one I bought as a set on eBay for £3.50. Phil also provides a personal service of caricatures if you want to take a peek at his Facebook page.

This is a small set of ten and I imagine Phil decided to do the set and not include Anglo Scots so there’s no Denis Law or Dave Mackay in the set but you do get Alan Gilzean with some hair still from his Dundee days.

Ostensibly, the set is made up of two each from Rangers, Celtic, Hearts and Hibs with one each from two teams which won the 1st Division in the 60’s; Dundee and Kilmarnock.

The Rangers players are fairly obvious i.e. John Greig and Jim Baxter both icons from the sixties, the Celtic players are Lisbon Lions Billy McNeill and Bobby Murdoch. The Hibs players Peter Cormack and Pat Stanton are also good choices of their era as are Alan Gilzean of Dundee and other than goalkeepers Campbell Forsyth or Bobby Ferguson, Tommy McLean was probably the best choice for Kilmarnock. As for the Hearts players there could be an argument for Dave Mackay and Alex Young but both had big successes with their English clubs Spurs and Everton respectively, so maybe they’ve been used in another set, so perhaps Davie Holt who earned five caps in the mid-sixties is a good choice as probably is Jim Cruickshank who although he gained only one cap in the sixties with his other five coming in the seventies, represents the Hearts team of the time as much as anybody. Although to do him without his moustache is a bit sacrilegious I feel.

Of course, my supposition is based on players, cap etc. whilst Phil might have just done it because they had the more interesting faces. So there you go a good wee set of cards, that framed would look good in anybody’s hallway or even in a Scotland pub.

David Stuart

Monty Gum was company from Netherlands that produced cards throughout the seventies and eighties; not just football cards but there was also Kojak, Starsky & Hutch and Elvis among their sets. Generally their cards were very cheaply made with the back being made of the type of cardboard from a Corn Flake packet of the time. Some of the sets did have an accompanying album but I have never seen any.

I have slagged off Monty Gum cards in the past and in particular their Euro ’88 set with Graeme Hogg among the Scottish cards when he never played for the full team as well as Arthur Albiston being listed as Albistan.

However, 1978 World Cup sets is actually quite good. The cards themselves although flimsy are generally good photos and there is also a team card. The Scotland players in the set are as follows; Dalglish, Donachie, Forsyth, Hartford, Jardine, Johnston, Jordan, Macari, Mason (think they mean Masson), McQueen, Parlane (?) and Rough.

Parlane, is of course the only one that didn’t get to Argentina, so for a Monty Gum set that’s not too bad. As for the World Cup ’82 set which I haven’t seen but as far as I know the same cards were used but only smaller in size!

I only a few of these and I am on the lookout for more, so if you have a bunch let me know. These cards like others are on display in the Cards & Sticker section of the website.

David Stuart

Happy Birthday to Derek Johnstone who will be 62 on November 4th. Derek played 14 times for the Scotland and perhaps was hindered in being available as both a striker and centre half in his career and maybe if he had stuck at one or the other, may have accumulated more caps. Ultimately though, Derek will be known more for the games he didn’t play in, rather than the ones he did.

Derek’s first burst of games for Scotland came in May / June 1973 where he was picked by Willie Ormond as a centre half. With the Scots having been roundly beaten by England 5-0 the previous February, Ormond decided to go with a new central pairing for the Home Internationals.

Derek would start his first game against Wales at the Racecourse, Wrexham in May 1973 lining up alongside Manchester United’s Jim Holton. Holton is a Scottish legend but he would only win one more cap than Johnstone. He would play in seven games in 1973 and eight in ’74 with only one being after the 1974 World Cup; admittedly some of those games, goals and memories are among our collective greatest. Injuries would really put pay to Holton’s Scotland career though.

Also, making their debuts that day were fellow Rangers players Peter McCloy, Derek Parlane and one Daniel Fergus McGrain of Celtic. Scotland won 2-0 that day with George Graham, then of Manchester United scoring both goals.

Unfortunately for Johnstone and Scotland that was as good as it got that summer. Defeats followed at home to Northern Ireland (2-1) and then a 1-0 loss to England at Wembley. Two friendlies followed; the first a 1-0 defeat to Switzerland in Berne and then the big one. Scotland v Brazil; the World Champions at Hampden on June 30th. 78,181 people turned out for this game including a little rapscallion from Sunny Milton seeing his first Scotland game. Although, there was no Pele; there was still Rivelino, Jairzinho and Clodoaldo from the 1970 World Cup winning team. As for Derek, he scored the only goal of the game unfortunately it was in his own net!

Next up for Scotland was that famous night at Hampden where we qualified for 1974 World Cup with Holton providing one of the goals, as for Derek he was dropped and replaced by Celtic’s George Connelly making his debut that night.

World Cup ’74 would come and go before Derek got another chance to prove himself, however it was only a four minute appearance as he came on as a sub for Kenny Dalglish as the Scots beat East Germany 3-0 in a friendly at Hampden in October, 1974. Another sub appearance six months later, April ’75, in a friendly against Sweden in Gothenburg saw him in a more midfield position after coming on for Lou Macari inn 54 mins. Scotland would equalise though Ted MacDougall of Norwich City in the 86th minute.

Again, Johnstone would disappear from the national scene returning a year later in a starting line-up that included Johnstone Andy Gray, Kenny Dalglish and making his debut Willie Pettigrew all in attack. Pettigrew would score in only two minutes and this was to be the game’s only goal.

Derek would also make two subs appearance in that years’ Home Internationals coming on in both the 3-0 win against Northern Ireland at Hampden in May ‘76 and also the 2-1 victory at Wembley a week later.

1978 and things had changed; Willie Ormond had stepped down and the ebullient Ally MacLeod had taken charge, the previous year. Scotland had already qualified for Argentina without Johnstone being involved, however he was racking up the goals for Rangers that season and merited his chance for a place on the plane to Argentina.

Derek came on as a sub against Bulgaria in the February as Scotland won 2-1 at Hampden with goals from Archie Gemmill and Coventry’s Ian Wallace.

May, 1978, Rangers had won the treble with Johnstone contributing 38 goals and Derek had won both the Writers and Players Player of the Year award. He was given a starting place against Northern Ireland and lightened up a dull affair of a game with an equalising flying header in the 36th minute. Another lacklustre performance against Wales a few days later from the team saw Derek being one of the few who would come off the pitch with some credit due to a 12th minute goal, in a game that is perhaps best remembered for Willie Donachie’s own goal from a pass back to goalie Jim Blyth of Coventry.

However, two goals in two games, a great season and the mandatory perm was not enough for Ally as Derek was dropped for the game against England at Hampden, which Scotland lost 1-0.

MacLeod’s preference to start with Joe Jordan is often seen as flawed, both in the England game and all three or our World Cup games but to be fair Joe did make contributions in both the Peru and Dutch games. However, it was Ally’s choice of utilising Joe Harper as a sub instead of Johnstone in the poor one all draw with Iran that is perhaps the hardest to fathom.

Scotland had both the Scotland and England Players of the year that season and neither Johnstone nor Andy Gray would see a minute of play in the Argentine; Gray wouldn’t even make it into the squad.

MacLeod out and Jock Stein in; the winter of ’78 would herald a new era for Scotland, sadly for Derek he was not to be part of it and would only make one more appearance in a Euro Qualifier in December 1979, when he started up front alongside Kenny Dalglish. Belgium would blitz Scotland with three goals in a thirteen minute period in the first half, which we never recovered with John Robertson managing our only counter in the second half.

So that was it for Derek, with the younger Stevie Archibald starting the next game and Andy Gray getting a consistent place in the team he was never to pull on the Dark Blue of Scotland again.

So Happy Birthday DJ as we remember another of Scotland’s If Only conjectures. All the best.

David Stuart

If you ever seek out any of these books this is probably the best; that I’ve seen anyway and certainly from a Scotland point of view. Not only is there a review of the World Cup with pictures from Munich ’74. There’s also pictures and a match report of the stuffing of England that year at Hampden and the there’s also pictures of the win against Czechoslovakia that put us on the road to Germany. The only complaint is there’s no colour except for the front cover which is a pity since some of the images would have look great in colour.

However, in his review of the World Cup perhaps we see the birth of what was to come in 1978 as Hugh Taylor writes “The truth is that Scotland might well have gone to the final – though to be honest. I don’t think we had just enough skill, sophistication or enough class players to have won the World Cup.”

As I said there’s a good mixture of pictures including Joe Jordan’s goal against Zaire; a blow by blow pictorial account of Bremner’s miss against Brazil, Yugoslavia’s against us; followed by Joe Jordan’s equalising goal.

Of the England game, the lead up to both goals is shown as well and finally plenty of celebrating at Hampden against the Czech’s.

One other thing of note is perhaps the first real glimpse of the Tartan army outside of London and to many perhaps the birthplace of it all in Germany.

David Stuart

Some recent additions to our various pages;

Cards & Stickers

Magazine Covers

Miscellaneous Memorabilia

Team Photos

Another one of those cuttings that I’m not sure where it came from whether it was a magazine or an annual but it doesn’t matter as it’s a cracker. Here we have five Scottish players who made their mark in the late 50’s and early 60’s and of course for the Lawman a wee bit further too.

So who do we have? Top left hand corner is Ralph Brand of Rangers. Ralph would only play eight times for Scotland between 1960 and 1962, scoring two goals against Northern Ireland on his debut in November 1960; Denis Law, Eric Caldow (penalty) and Alex Young were the other scorers in a 5-2 win at Hampden. Scoring against Ireland; be it Northern or the Republic was a speciality of Ralph’s as he scored four against Northern and three against their Southern cousins. His eighth and final Scotland goal came against Uruguay at Hampden in May 1962 in his final game. 8 caps and 8 goals and he couldn’t keep his place; if only we had someone with that type of record now.

Next to him is Graham Leggat who recently passed away at the age of 81. Graham’s first cap came in 1956 when he scored Scotland’s goal in a 1-1 each draw with England at Hampden. Graham was an Aberdeen player at the time and would win seven caps as a Don including two appearances at the 1958 World Cup. He would win a further eleven caps as a Fulham player and like Ralph Brand would score eight goals in total.

In the middle is George Herd who was a Clyde player during his time with Scotland and although he would play over 300 games for Sunderland he was never capped as an Anglo. George first played for the National side on April 19th, 1958 and if you were one of the 127,874 crowd you probably don’t want a reminder of the score. (Whisper it, we lost 4-0). George only played five times for Scotland but is one of only 11 Scottish players to have played against Turkey! This was in a 4-2 defeat friendly in Ankara in June, 1960. His only goal would come in a 3-3 draw with Hungary just a few days before this. In his final game he played with Messrs. Brand, Mackay and Law; three of the other kingpins.

Bottom left hand corner we have the irrepressible Dave Mackay. Dave would play twenty two times for Scotland starting as a Hearts player in 26th May, 1957, where like George Herd he didn’t have the best of starts with Scotland going down 4-1 to Spain in a World Cup Qualifier but thankfully we had already beaten Spain 4-2 at Hampden and would qualify for Sweden 1958. Surprisingly, Dave didn’t feature again until just over a year later when he was drafted in as part of the team for our final game of the World Cup Finals against France which was lost 2-1.

Dave would score four times for Scotland; the first two as mainly consolation goals in 4-1 defeat to Austria and then in a match against England where we scored a paltry 3 goals and England scored a few more but like the play ‘Macbeth’ maybe it’s one those things we shouldn’t give a name to. Happier times were ahead when he scored two against Norway in November ’63 with Denis Law hitting four in a 6-1 friendly win at Hampden. Dave would play his last Scotland game in October ’65 in a 3-2 defeat to Northern Ireland with fellow Spurs player Alan Gilzean netting a double.

Finally there’s Denis Law, who scored on his Scotland debut in October 1958 in 3-0 win over Wales at Ninian Park, Cardiff; Graham Leggat was also among the scorers that night with Bobby Collins hitting the third. Of course Denis went on to be the legend that he still is, with a Scotland career spanning 16 years and 55 caps making his swansong appearance in the first game of the 1974 Wold Cup against Zaire. Denis, is of course our equal top goalscorer of all time with Kenny Dalglish on 30.

So five Scotland players with 51 goals between them from around the same era; which would be nice to have again sometime.

David Stuart

Arthur Graham will be 63 on October 26th. Arthur gained 11 caps for Scotland, all whilst playing for Leeds United although due to his appearance’s in football cards in the early 70’s I always think of him as a winger for Aberdeen. Arthur also went on to play for Manchester United and Bradford.

His first cap came shortly after his move from Aberdeen to Leeds; coming on as a sub against East Germany for Willie Johnston in a friendly in September, 1977 at the Weltjugend Stadion in East Berlin. Scotland lost one nil with Leeds teammate and goalkeeper David Stewart making his one and only Scotland appearance that night. Like many players, first capped by Ally Macleod, Arthur was never given the chance to establish himself as Ally seemed to prefer players capped by Willie Ormond and his predecessors.*

His second cap came after the 1978 debacle, when he replaced Joe Jordan in a Euro Qualifier against Austria in Vienna. Within minutes of him coming on Scotland went three down but a late revival through goals by Gordon McQueen and Andy Gray must have impressed a watching Jock Stein as he was to be in charge in Scotland’s next game.

Arthur started against Norway at Hampden in October, 1978 and would win the penalty in the 87th minute which meant big Jock’s first game in charge would be a win as Scotland won 3-2 with two goals from Kenny Dalglish and the penalty from Gemmill.

Arthur would miss Scotland’s next game a one nil defeat to Portugal but following that he would play in the next seven games, only being on the bench for one of them.

Arthur played in all three games of the May, 1979 Home International series, which saw Scotland get thumped 3-0 by Wales and especially John Toshack as he hit a hat-trick; in the first game. A small crowd of 28,524 saw Scotland beat Northern Ireland with Arthur scoring the only goal of the game to give Scotland victory. The final game of the series saw Scotland go down 3-1 to England at Wembley.

Defeat was also to follow in June ’79 at Hampden as the newly crowned World Champions Argentina turned up in Glasgow with a young Diego Maradona giving the Scots a masterclass in football. The game is not so much remembered for Arthur’s second Scotland goal which came as a consolation in the 85th as the Scots toiled 3-1.

Five days later, Arthur would be part of the team that beat Norway 4-0 in Oslo with Jordan, Dalglish, John Robertson and Gordon McQueen scoring. Although both Robertson and Arthur played in this side together, it would perhaps be Robertson coming more to the fore as an important player for Scotland and taking the left sided berth that would see Arthur’s Scotland career peter out.

Interestingly enough, Arthur would be a sub come the next Scotland game in September of 1979; he would replace Davie Cooper. It would take a few years though for Cooper to install himself as a favourite of Jock’s. Scotland drew one each with Peru at Hampden with Asa Hartford scoring the Scots goal.

A return to Euro Qualifiers in October against Austria at Hampden saw Scotland draw one each with Cooper coming on for Graham this time. Scotland’s goal was scored by Archie Gemmill with Hans Krankl scoring for Austria.

Arthur then dropped off Jock’s radar and returned for his final cap against Wales in May 1981 when the Scots again lost to Wales 2-0 with Ian Walsh hitting a double.

(Arthur’s final appearance)

So Happy birthday Arthur and all the best.

David Stuart

* For further information of the players Ally MacLeod gave debuts to; please type in ‘Ally Oops’ as a search.