WHERE HAS ALL YOUR SWAGGER GONE?
Scotland used to be full of bravado when facing England but their decline has been stark
The back page of a Glasgow newspaper encapsulates how Scotland’s old, raging certainties in its national football team have been extinguished.
It was precisely 40 years ago this week that the Scots inflicted the ultimate indignity on england, beating them 2-1 at Wembley before a jubilant Tartan Army marauded over the pitch and broke the goalposts, yet Tuesday’s headline proclaimed: No Chance — Richard Gough’s assessment of the country’s chances against their most bitter foe at Hampden on Saturday.
Other titles projected the view of Ipswich’s Christophe Berra that england will be a laughing stock if they lose. It is a stunning fall from grace for a side which exuded such swagger on that Wembley day in 1977, having already put themselves well on their way to a second successive World Cup, with manager Ally MacLeod telling all who would listen that they would win it.
For the best sense of how Scotland looked england square in the face in those days, consider how utterly dispensable Alan hansen was. he retired with a mere 26 caps. In the hours before the iconic 1977 home international, players like Manchester United’s Lou Macari fretted that their place in the 1978 World Cup squad was at stake.
The original squad MacLeod named for Argentina comprised 80 players, with Macari directly up against Bruce Rioch, Don Masson, Archie Gemmill, Asa hartford and Graeme Souness. ‘I wondered how I was going to make the cut, Manchester United player or not,’ Macari says.
With Kenny Dalglish, Joe Jordan, Masson and Rioch all starting against Don Revie’s england, Macari had to make the best of things as a substitute. The 2-1 win was even more precious than the same scoreline at hampden the previous summer, when Liverpoolbound Dalglish put the ball between Ray Clemence’s legs.
The man who filled the Scotland manager’s seat nine years later reveals that even by 1986, the only thing the Scottish FA interview panel cared about was reaching the World Cup finals.
‘They gave me that one target,’ says Andy Roxburgh. ‘They said, “european Championships, do your best. england, we’d like you to beat them.” But everything was about the World Cup.’
Scotland reached six successive finals, though it was in the mid1980s that Roxburgh pinpoints some of the problems which have seen no Scottish qualification since 1998. Some are technical.
A long teachers’ strike had an unexpected negative effect on the administration of the Scottish schoolboy football system which helped capture the best talent.
Numbers of registered schoolboy footballers fell from 45,000 to 15,000 in a few years, but Scotland also lost a more fundamental lifeblood.
‘Coaches like Jock Stein, Alex Ferguson and Craig Brown left the club system and had no equals,’ says Roxburgh. ‘Clubs started buying cheap foreign players, too. I remember one chairman saying, “We’ve stopped investing in our players.” The streets had produced so many, too.
‘Lifestyles changed. People found other interests.’
Roxburgh recalls talking with a German technical director who told him: ‘Our resources and your resources can’t compare, so you’d better be as good as we are at